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 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS ONE OF 
 A COLLECTION MADE BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 
 1854-1919 
 
 AND BEQUEATHED TO 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 PQ 2350.S9 1889 
 
 Afloat 
 
 3 1924 027 318 546 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027318546 
 
GUY DE MAUPASSANT. 
 
 Afloat 
 
 by 
 
 RlOU 
 
 -j 
 
 4 li/J 
 
 GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS 
 London, Glasgow, Manchester & New York ^ 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
GUY DE MAUPASSANT 
 
 AFLOAT 
 
 (SUR L'EAU) 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY RlOU 
 
 Tbanslated by LAURA ENSOR 
 
 LONDON 
 GEOEGE EOUTLEDGE AND SONS 
 
 EEOADWAY, LUDGATE HILL 
 
 GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK 
 
 1889 
 3 
 
 
 
/j (oo-^^ ''^'7(o 
 
 LONDON : 
 BRADBTJRT, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHTTEFRIARR. 
 
This Diary contains no story and no vety 
 thrilling adventure. While cruising about on 
 the coasts of the Mediterranean last Spring, 
 T amused myself by writing down every day 
 what I saw and what I thought. 
 
 I saw but the ivater, the sun, clouds and 
 rocks, — / can tell of nought else, — and my 
 thoughts were mere nothings, such as are sug- 
 gested by the rocking of the waves, lulling 
 and bearing one along. 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 Ajjril 6th, 
 
 I WAS sound asleep wlieii my skipper 
 Bernard awoke me by throwing up sand at 
 my window. I opened it, and on my face, 
 on my chest, in my Yory soul, I felt the 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 cold delicious breath of the night. The 
 sky was a clear blue gray, and alive with 
 the quivering fire of the stars. 
 
 The sailor, standing at the foot of the 
 wall, said : 
 
 "Fine weather, sir." 
 
 " What wind ? " 
 
 " Off shore." 
 
 " Very well, I'm coming." 
 
 Half-an-hour later I was hurrying down 
 to the shore. The horizon was pale with 
 the first rays of dawn, and I saw in the 
 distance behind the bay des Anges the 
 lights at Nice, and still further on the re- 
 volving lighthouse at ViUefranche. 
 
 In front of me Antibes was dimly visible 
 through the lifting darkness, with its two 
 towers rising above the cone-shaped town, 
 surrounded by the old walls built by 
 Vauban. 
 
 In the streets were a few dogs and a few 
 men, workmen starting off to their daily 
 labour. In the port, nothing but the 
 gentle swaying of the boats at the side of 
 
AFLOAT. t» 
 
 the quay, and the soft plashing of the 
 scarcely moving water could be heard; 
 or at times the sound of the straining 
 of a cable or of a boat grazing against the 
 hull of a vessel. The boats, the flagstones, 
 the sea itself seemed asleep under the gold- 
 spangled firmament, and under the eye of 
 a small lighthouse which, standing out at 
 the end of the jetty, kept watch over its 
 little harbour. 
 
 Beyond, in front of Ardouin's building 
 yard, I saw a glimmer, I felt a stir, I 
 heard voices. They were expecting me. 
 The Bel-Ami was ready to start. 
 
 I went down into the cabin, lighted up 
 by a couple of candles hanging and 
 balanced like compasses, at the foot of. the 
 sofas which at night were used as beds, I 
 donned the leathern sailor's jacket, put on 
 a warm cap, and returned on deck. Al- 
 ready the hawsers had been cast off, and 
 the tsvo men hauling in the cable, had 
 brought the anchor apeak. Then they 
 hoisted the big sail, which went up slowly 
 
 B 2 
 
10 AFLOAT. 
 
 to the monotonous groan of blocks and 
 rigging. It rose wide and wan in the 
 darkness of the night, quivering in the 
 breath of the wind, hiding from us both 
 sky and stars. 
 
 The breeze was coming dry and cold 
 from the invisible mountain that one felt 
 to be still laden with snow. It came very 
 faint, as though hardly awake, undecided 
 and intermittent. 
 
 Then the men shipped the anchor, I 
 seized the helm, and tbe boat, like a big 
 ghost, glided through the still waters. In 
 order to get out of the port, we had to tack 
 between the sleeping tartans and schooners. 
 "We went gently from one quay to another, 
 dragging after us our little round dingy, 
 which followed us as a cygnet, just 
 hatched from its shell, follows the parent 
 swan. 
 
 As soon as we reached the channel be- 
 tween the jetty and the square fort the 
 yacht became livelier, quickened its pace, 
 and seemea more alert, as though a joyous 
 
12 AFLOAT. 
 
 feeling Lad taken possession of her. She 
 danced over the countless short waves, — 
 moving furrows of a houndless plain. 
 Quitting the dead waters of the harhour, 
 she now felt under her the living sea. 
 
 There was no swell, and I directed our 
 course between the walls of the town and 
 the buoy called Cinq-cents francs (Twenty 
 pounds sterling) that marks the deeper 
 channel ; then, catching the breeze astern, 
 I made sail to double the headland. 
 
 The day was breaking, the stars were 
 disappearing, for the last time the Ville- 
 franche lighthouse closed its revolving eye, 
 audi saw strange roseate glimmers in the 
 distant sky, above the still invisible Nice ; 
 the heights of the Alpine glaciers lighted 
 up by the early dawn. I gave the helm 
 over to Bernard, and watched the rising 
 sun. The freshened breeze sent us skim-* 
 ming over the quivering violet-tinted 
 w^aters. A bell clanged, throwing to the 
 wind the three rapid strokes of the An- 
 geliis. IIow is it that the sound of bells 
 
AFLOAT. 13 
 
 seems livelier in the early dawn, and 
 heavier at nightfall? I like that chill 
 and keen hour of morn, when man still 
 sleeps, and all Nature is awakening. The 
 air is full of mysterious thrills unknown to 
 belated risers. I inhale, I drink it ; I see 
 all life returning, the material life of the 
 world ; the life that runs through all the 
 planets, the secret of which is our eternal 
 puzzle. 
 
 Raymond said : 
 
 " We shall soon have the wind from the 
 east." 
 
 Bernard replied : 
 
 " More likely from the west." 
 
 The skipper Bernard is lean and lithe, 
 remarkably clean, careful and prudent. 
 Bearded up to his eyes, he has a frank 
 look and a kindly voice. He is devoted 
 and trusty. But everything makes him 
 anxious at sea ; a sudden swell that fore- 
 tells a breeze out at sea, a long cloud over 
 the Esterel mountains announcing a mistral 
 to westward, even a rising barometer, for 
 
16 AFLOAT. 
 
 that may indicate a squall from the east. 
 Moreover, a capital sailor, he exercises a 
 constant supervision and carries cleanli- 
 ness to such an extent, as to ruh up the 
 brasses the moment a drop of water has 
 touched them. 
 
 His brother-in-law, Raymond, is a strong 
 fellow, swarthy and moustached, inde- 
 fatigable and bold, as loyal and devoted as 
 the other, but less variable and nervous, 
 more calm, more resigned to the surprises 
 and treachery of the sea. Bernard, 
 Raymond and the barometer are some- 
 times ia contradiction with each other, 
 and perform an amusing comedy with 
 three personages, of which one, the best 
 informed, is dumb. 
 
 " Dash it, sir, we're sailing well," said 
 Bernard. 
 
 We had, it was true, passed through 
 the gulf of La Salis, cleared La Garoupe, 
 and were approaching Cape Gros, a flat 
 low rock stretching out on a level with the 
 water. 
 
AFLOAT. 17 
 
 Now, the whole Alpine mountain range 
 appeared, a monster wave threatening the 
 sea, a granite wave capped with snow, 
 where each pointed tip looks like a dash of 
 spray motionless and frozen. And the 
 sun rises behind this ice, shedding over it 
 the light of its molten silver rays. 
 
 Then directly after, as we round the 
 Antibes headland, we discover the Lerins 
 Isles, and further off behind them, the 
 tortuous outline of the Esterel. The 
 Esterel is the stage scenery of Cannes, a 
 lovely keepsake kind of mountain of 
 faintest blue, elegantly outlined in a 
 coquettish and yet artistic style, washed in 
 water-colours on a theatrical sky by a good- 
 natured Creator for the express purpose of 
 serving as model for English lady land- 
 scape painters, and as a subject of admira- 
 tion for consumptive or idle royal high- 
 nesses. 
 
 With each hour of the day, the Esterel 
 changes its aspect, and charms the gaze of 
 the iipprv ten. 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 19 
 
 In tlio morning the chain of mountains, 
 correctly and clearly cut out, is sharply 
 delineated on a blue sky ; a tender and 
 pure blue, the ideal blue of a southern 
 shore. But in the evening, the wooded 
 
 f. jfmaa^irSH*- 'tMu, i '. ♦ } w,,J5'i';^.' '_ 
 
 sides of the slopes darken and bceomo a 
 black patch on a fiery sky, on a sky in- 
 credibly red and dramatic. Never have I 
 seen elsewhere such f airylikc sunsets, such 
 conflagrations of the whole horizon, such 
 an effulgence of clouds, such a clever and 
 superb arrangement, such a daily renewal 
 
20 AFLOAT. 
 
 of extravagant and magnificent effects 
 whicli call forth admiration but would 
 raise a smile were they painted by men. , 
 
 The Lerins Isles, which to the east close 
 the Gulf of Cannes and separate it. from 
 the Gulf of Juan, look themselves like two 
 operatic islands placed there for the satis- 
 faction and delight of the invalid and 
 winter sojourners. 
 
 Seen from the open sea, where we now 
 are, they resemble two dark green gardens 
 growing in the water. Out at sea, at the 
 extreme end of Saint-Honorat stands a 
 romantic ruin, its walls rising out of the 
 v/aves, quite- one of "Walter Scott's castles, 
 ever beaten by the surf, and in which, in 
 former days, the monks defended them- 
 selves against the Saracens; for Saint- 
 Honorat always belonged to monks, except 
 during the Revolution. At that period 
 the island was purchased by an actress of 
 the Comedie-Frangaise. 
 
 Stronghold, militant monks, now toned 
 down into the fattest of smilingly begging 
 
AFT.OAT. 21 
 
 Trappists, pretty actress come thither no 
 doubt to conceal her love affairs in the dense 
 thickets and pines of this rock-belted islet ; 
 all, down to the very names; "Lerins, 
 Saint-Honorat, Sainte-Marguerite," fit for 
 Florian's fables, all is pleasing, coquettish, 
 romantic, poetic and rather insipid on the 
 delightful shores of Cannes. 
 
 To correspond vrith the antique manor 
 embattled, slender and erect, -which looks 
 towards the open sea at the extremity 
 of Saint-Honorat, Sainte-Marguerite is 
 terminated on the land side by the 
 celebrated fortress in which the Man in 
 the Iron Mask and Bazaine wore confined. 
 A channel about a mile long stretches out 
 between the headland of the Croizette and 
 the fortress, which has the aspect of an old 
 squat house, devoid of anything imposing 
 or majestic. It seems to crouch down dull 
 and sly, a real trap for prisoners. 
 
 I can now see the three gulfs. In 
 front, beyond the islands, lies that of 
 Cannes ; nearer, the Gulf Juan, and 
 
22 AFLOAT. 
 
 behind the bay dcs Aiiges, overtopped by 
 the Alps and the snowy heights. Further 
 off, the coasts can be seen far beyond the 
 Italian frontier, and with my glasses I can 
 
 ^ias«^».i^-5;. _ 
 
 «^ 
 
 sight at the end of a promontory the white 
 houses of Bordighcra. 
 
 And everywhere, all along the endless 
 coast, the towns by the seashore, the 
 villages perched up on high on the moun- 
 tain side, the innumerable villas dotted 
 about in the greenery, all look like white 
 
AFLOAT. 23 
 
 eggs laid on tte sands, laid on the rocks, 
 laid amongst the pine forests by gigantic 
 birds that have come in the night from the 
 snowlands fav above. 
 
 Villas again on the Cape of Antibes, a 
 long tongue of land, a wonderful garden 
 thrown out between the seas, blooming 
 ■with the most lovely flowers of Europe, 
 and at the extreme point, Eileen Eock, 
 a charming and whimsical residence that 
 attracts visitors from Cannes and Nice. 
 
 The breeze has dropped, the yacht 
 hardly makes any progress. After the 
 current of land wind that lasts all night, 
 we are waiting and hoping for a whiff of 
 sea air, which will be most welcome, 
 wherever it may blow from. 
 
 Bernard still believes in a west wind, 
 Raymond in an east one, and the baro- 
 meter remains motionless at a little above 
 76. 
 
 The sun now radiant, overspreads the 
 earth, making the walls of the houses 
 sparkle from afar like scattered snow, and 
 
24 AFLOAT. 
 
 sheds over the sea a light varnish of lumi- 
 nous blue. 
 
 Little hy little, taking advantage of the 
 faintest breath, of those caresses of the air 
 which one can hardly feel on the skin, but 
 to which nevertheless lively and well- 
 trimmed yachts glide through the still 
 waters, we sail beyond the last point of 
 the headland, and the whole gulf of Juan, 
 with the squadron in the centre of it, lies 
 before us. 
 
 From afar, the ironclads look like rocks, 
 islets, and reefs covered ■ with dead trees. 
 The smoke of a train runs along the shore 
 between Cannes and Juan-les-Pins, which 
 will perhaps become later on the prettiest 
 place on the whole coast. 
 
 Three tartans with their lateen sails, 
 one red and the other two white, are 
 detained in the channel between Sainte- 
 Marguerite and the mainland. 
 
 All is still, the soft and warm calm of 
 a morning's springtide in the south; and 
 already it seems to me as if I had left 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 2S 
 
 weeks ago, months ago, years ago, the talk- 
 ing, busy world ; I feel arise within me 
 the intoxication of solitude, the sweet 
 delights of a rest that nothing will disturb, 
 
 neither the white letter, uor the blue 
 telegram, nor the hell at my door, nor the 
 bark of my dog. I cannot be sent for, 
 invited, carried off, overwhelmed by sweet 
 
26 AFLOAT. 
 
 smiles, or harassed by civilities. I am 
 alone, really alone, really free. The smoke 
 of the train runs along the seaside ; while I 
 float in a •winged home that is rocked and 
 cradled ; pretty as a bird, tiny as a nest, 
 softer than a hammock, wandering over 
 the waters at the caprice of the wind, 
 independent and free ! To attend to me 
 and sail my boat, I have two sailors at my 
 call, and books and provisions for a fort- 
 night. 
 
 A whole fortnight without speaking, 
 what joy ! Overcome by the heat of the 
 sun I closed my eyes, enjoying the deep 
 repose of the sea, when Bernard said in an 
 undertone : 
 
 "The brig over there has a good 
 breeze." 
 
 Over there it was true, far away in 
 front of Agay, a brig was advancing 
 towards us ; I could distinctly see with my 
 glasses her rounded sails puffed out by the 
 wind. 
 
 "Pooh, -it's the breeze from Agay," 
 
AFLOAT. 27 
 
 answered Raymond, " it is calm round Cape 
 Roux." 
 
 " Talk away, we shall have a west wind," 
 replied Bernard. 
 
 I leant over to look at the barometer in 
 the saloon. It had fallen during the last 
 half hour. I told Bernard, who smiled 
 and whispered : 
 . " It feels like a westerly wind, sir." 
 
 And now my curiosity awakens ; the 
 curiosity special to all those who wander 
 over the sea, which makes them see every- 
 thing, notice everything, and take an 
 interest in the smallest detail. My glasses 
 no longer leave my eyes ; I look at the 
 colour of the water on the horizon. It 
 remains clear, varnished, unruffled. If 
 there is a breeze, it is still far off. 
 
 "What a personage the wind is for the 
 sailors ! They speak of it as of a man, an 
 all-powerful sovereign, sometimes terrible 
 and sometimes kindly. It is the main 
 topic of conversation all the day through, 
 and it is the subject of one's incessant 
 
28 AFLOAT. 
 
 tlLOUgMs throughout the days -and nights- 
 You land folk, know it not ! As for us, we 
 know it better than our father or our 
 mother, the invisible, the terrible, the capri- 
 cious, the sly, the treaciherous, the devouring 
 tyrant. "We love it and we dread it ; we 
 know its maliciousness audits anger, "which 
 the warnings in the heavens or in the 
 depths, slowly teach us to anticipate. It 
 forces us to think of it at every minute, at 
 every second, for the struggle between it 
 and us, is indeed ceaseless. All our being 
 is on the alert for the battle ; our eye to 
 detect undiscernible appearances ; cur skin 
 to feel its caress or its blow, our spirit to 
 recognize its mood, foresee its caprices, 
 judge whether it is calm or wayward. No 
 enemy, no woman gives us so powerful a 
 sensation of struggle, nor compels us to so 
 much foresight, for it is the master of the 
 sea, it is that thing which we may avoid, 
 make use of, or fly from, but which we can 
 never subdue. And there reigns in the 
 soul of a sailor as in that of a believer, the 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 idea of an irascible and formidable God, 
 the mysterious, religious, infinite fear of 
 the wind, and respect for its power. 
 
 " Here it comes, sir," Bernard said to 
 me. 
 
 Far away, very far away, at the end of 
 the horizon, a blue-black line lengthens 
 out on the water. It is nothing, a shade, 
 an imperceptible shadow ; it is the wind. 
 Now we await it motionless, under the 
 heat of the sun. 
 
 I look at the time, eight o'clock, and 
 I say: 
 
 " Bless me, it is early for the westerly 
 wind." 
 
 " It will blow hard in the afternoon," 
 replied Bernard. 
 
 I raised my eyes to the sail, hanging 
 flat, loose and inert. Its great triangle 
 seemed to reach up to the sky, for we 
 had hoisted on the foremast the great 
 fine-weather gaflf topsail and its yard 
 overtopped the mast-head by quite two 
 yards. All is motionless, we might be on 
 
30 AFLOAT. 
 
 land. The baromeier is still falling- 
 However, the dark line perceived afar, 
 approaches. The metallic lustre of the 
 waters is suddenly dimmed and trans- 
 formed into a slatey shade. The sky is 
 pure and cloudless. 
 
 
 
 Suddenly, around us the polished surface 
 if the sea is rippled by imperceptible 
 shivers gliding rapidly over it, appearing 
 but to be effaced, as though it were 
 riddled by a rain of thousands of little 
 pinches of sand. 
 
 The sail quivers slightly, and presently 
 
AVLOA'I'. 
 
 the main boom slowly lurches over to 
 starboard. A light breath now caresses 
 my face, and the shivers on the water 
 increase around us, as though the rain of 
 sand had become continuous. The cutter 
 
 begins to move forward. She glide? on 
 upright, and a slight plash makes itself 
 heard along her sides. I feel the tiller 
 stiffen in my hand, that long brass cross- 
 bar which looks in the sun like a fiery 
 stem, and the breeze steadily increases. 
 
32 AFLOAT. 
 
 We shall liave to tack, but what matter ; 
 the boat sails close to the wind, and if the 
 breeze holds, we shall be able to beat 
 up to Saint-Eaphael before the sun goes 
 down. 
 
 We now approach the squadron, whose 
 six ironclads and two despatch boats turn 
 slowly at their anchors, with their bows to 
 the west. Then we tack towards the open 
 sea to pass the Formigues rocks, which are 
 marked by a tower in the middle of the 
 gulf. The breeze freshens more and 
 more with surprising rapidity, and the 
 waves rise up short and choppy. The 
 yacht bends low under her fuU set of sails, 
 and runs on, followed by the dingy, which 
 with stretched-out painter is hurried 
 through the foam, her nose in the air and 
 stern in the water. 
 
 On nearing the island of Saint-Honorat 
 we pass by a naked rock, red and bristling 
 like a porcupine, so rugged, so armed with 
 teeth, points, and claws as to be well-nigh 
 impossible of access ; and one must advance 
 
AF;.0AT. 33 
 
 with precaution, placing one's feet in the 
 hollows between the tusks : it is called 
 Saint-Ferreol. 
 
 A little earth, come from no one knows 
 where, has accumulated in the holes and 
 crevasses of the rock, and lilies grow in it, 
 and beautiful blue irises, from seeds which 
 seem to have fallen from heaven. 
 
 It is on this strange reef, in the open 
 sea, that for five years lay buried and 
 unknown the body of Paganini. The 
 adventure is worthy of this artist, whose 
 queer character, at once genial and weird, 
 gave him the reputation of being possessed 
 by the devil, and who, with his odd ap- 
 pearance in body and face, his marvellous 
 talent and excessive emaciation, has be- 
 come an almost legendary being, a sort of 
 Hoflfmanesque phantasm. 
 
 As he was on his way home to Genoa, 
 his native town, accompanied by his son, 
 who alone could hear him now, so weak 
 had his voice become, he died at Nice 
 of cholera, on the 27th May, 1840. 
 
34 AFLOAT. 
 
 The son at once took the body of his 
 father on board a ship and set sail for 
 Italy. But the Genoese clergy refused to 
 give burial to the demoniac. The court 
 of Rome was consulted, but dared not grant 
 the authorization. The body was, how- 
 ever, about to be disembarked, when the 
 municipality made opposition, under the 
 pretext that the artist had died of cholera. 
 Genoa was at that time ravaged by an 
 epidemic of this disease, and it was argued 
 that the presence of this new corpse might 
 possibly aggravate the evil. 
 
 Paganini's son then returned to Mar- 
 seilles, where entrance to the port waJs 
 refused him for ^he same reasons. He 
 then went on to Cannes, where he could 
 not penetrate either. 
 
 He therefore remained at sea, and the 
 waves rocked the corpse of the fantastic 
 artist, everywhere repelled by men. He no 
 Jonger knew what to do, where to go, bn 
 which spot to lay the dead body so sacred 
 to him, when he espied the naked rock 
 
AFLOAT. 35 
 
 of Saint-Ferreol in the midst of the hillows. 
 There at last he laiided the coffin, and 
 buried it in the centre of the islet. 
 
 It was only in 1845 that he went back 
 with two of his friends to take up the re- 
 mains of his father, and transfer them to 
 Genoa to the Yilla Gajona. 
 
 Would one not have preferred that 
 the extraordinary violinist should have 
 remained at rest upon the bristling reef, 
 cradled by the song of the waves as they 
 break on the torn and craggy rock. 
 
 Further on, in the open sea, rises the 
 castle of Saint-Honorat, which we had 
 already perceived as we rounded the Cape 
 of Antibes, and further on still, a line of 
 reefs ended by a tower called " Les 
 Moines." 
 
 They are now quite white with surf and 
 echoing with the roar of the breakers. 
 
 They form one of the most dangerous 
 perils of the coast during the night, for 
 they are marked by no light, and they are 
 the cause of frequent wrecks. 
 
36 AFLOAT. 
 
 A sudden gust heels us over, so that the 
 water washes the deck, and I give orders 
 for the gaff topsail to be lowered, the 
 cutter being no longer able to carry it 
 without endangering the safety of the 
 mast. 
 
 The waves sink, swell, and whiten ; the 
 wind whistles, ill-tempered and squally, — 
 a threatening wind, which cries " Take 
 care ! " 
 
 " We shall have to go and sleep at 
 Cannes," said Bernard. 
 
 And in fact, at the end of half an hour, 
 we had to lower the standing jib, and re- 
 place it by a smaller one, taking a reef in 
 the sail at the same time ; then a quarter 
 of an hour later we had to take in a second 
 reef. Thereupon I decided to make for 
 the harbour at Cannes, a dangerous har- 
 bour, without shelter ; a roadstead open to 
 the south-westerly sea, where the ships are 
 in constant danger. When one thinks 
 what a considerable amount of wealth 
 would accrue to the town, by the large 
 
AFLOAT. 37 
 
 number of foreign yachts that would flock 
 there, were they certain of finding a proper 
 shelter, one understands how inveterate 
 must be the indolence of this southern 
 population, who have not yet been able to 
 obtain from government such indispens- 
 able works. At ten o'clock we dropped 
 anchor opposite the steamboat Le Cannois, 
 and I landed, thoroughly disappointed at 
 the interruption of my trip. The whole 
 roadstead was white with foam. 
 
Cannes, April 7th, 9 p.m. 
 
 Princes, Princes, everywhere Princes. 
 They who love Princes are indeed happy. 
 
 Ko sooner had I set foot yesterday 
 morning on the promenade of the Croisette 
 than 1 met three, one behind the other. In 
 our democratic country, Cannes has become 
 the city of titles. 
 
 If one could open minds in the same 
 manner as one lifts the cover off a sauce- 
 pan, one would find figures in the brain of 
 the mathematician ; outlines of actors 
 gesticulating and declaiming in a theatrical 
 author's head; the form of a woman in 
 that of a lover's ; licentious pictures in 
 that of a rake ; verses in the brain of a 
 poet ; and in the cranium of the folk who 
 come to Cannes there would be found 
 
AFLOAT. 39 
 
 coronets of every description, floating about 
 like vermicelli in soup. 
 
 Some men gather together in gambling 
 houses because they are fond of cards, 
 others meet on race- courses because they 
 are fond of horses. People gather together 
 at Cannes because they love Imperial and 
 Royal Highnesses. 
 
 There they are at home and, in default 
 of the kingdoms of which they haxe been 
 dispossessed, reign peacefully in the salons 
 of the faithful. 
 
 Great and small, poor and rich, sad and 
 gay, all are to be found, according to taste. 
 In general they are modest, strive to 
 please, and show in their intercourse with 
 humbler mortals, a delicacy and affability 
 that is hardly ever found in our own 
 dSpiites, those Princes of the ballot. 
 
 However, if the Princes, the poor wan- 
 dering Princes without subjects or civil 
 list, who come to live in homely fashion in 
 this town of flowers and elegance, affect 
 simplicity, and do not lay themselves open 
 
40 AFLOAT. 
 
 to ridicule, even from those most dis- 
 respectfully inclined, such is not the 
 case with regard to the worshippers of 
 Highnesses. 
 
 These latter circle round their idols with 
 an eagerness at once religious and comical ; 
 and directly the}' are deprived of one, they 
 
 fly off in quest of another, as though their 
 mouths could only open to say " Mon- 
 seigneur " or " Madame," and speak in the 
 third person. 
 
 They cannot he Avith you five minutes 
 without telling you what the Princess 
 replied, what the Grand Duke said ; the 
 promenade planned with the one, the witty 
 saj'ing of the other. One feels, one sees. 
 
AFLOAT. 41 
 
 one guesses that they frequent no other 
 society but that of persons of Royal blood, 
 and if they deign to speak to you, it is in 
 order to inform you exactly of "what takes 
 place on these heights. 
 
 "What relentless struggles, struggles in 
 which every possible ruse is employed in 
 order to have at one's table, at least once 
 during the season, a Prince, a real Prince, 
 one of those at a premium. What respect 
 one inspires when one has met a Grand 
 Duke at lawn tennis, or when one has 
 merely been presented to "Wales, — as the 
 mashers say. 
 
 To write down one's name at the door 
 of these " exiles," as Daudet calls them, 
 of these tumble-down Princes, as others 
 would say, creates a constant, delicate, 
 absorbing and engrossing occupation. The 
 visitor's book lies open in the hall between 
 a couple of lackeys, one of whom proffers a 
 pen. One inscribes one's name at the tag 
 end of some two thousand names of every 
 sort and description, amongst which titles 
 
 D 2 
 
42 AFLOAT. 
 
 swarm and the noble particle de abounds ! 
 After wliicb, one goes off with the haughty 
 air of a man just ennobled, as happy as 
 one who has accomplished a sacred duty, 
 and one proudly says to the first person 
 met ; " I have just written down my name 
 
 at tlic Grand Duke of Gerolstein's ! " 
 Then in the evening at dinner one says, 
 in an important tone : " I noticed just now, 
 on the Grand Duke of Gerolstein's list, 
 the names of X . . ., Y . . ., and Z . . ." And 
 everyone is interested and listens as if the 
 event were of the greatest importance. 
 
AFLOAT. 43 
 
 But why laugh and be astonished at the 
 harmless and innocent mania of the elegant 
 adniircrs of Princes, when wo meet in 
 Paris fiftj' different races of hero-worship- 
 pers who are in no wasc less amusing. 
 
 Whoever has a salon must needs have 
 
 some celebrities to show there, and a hunt 
 is organised in order to secure them. 
 There is hardly a woman in society and 
 of the best, who is not anxious to have her 
 artist or her artists ; and she will give 
 dinners for them in order that the whole 
 world may know that her's is a clever set. 
 
44 AFLOAT. 
 
 Between affecting to possess the wit one 
 has not, but which one summons with a 
 flourish of trumpets, or affecting Princely 
 intimacies — where is the difference ? 
 
 Among the great men most sought after 
 by women, old and young, are most 
 assuredly musicians. Some houses possess 
 a complete collection of them. Moreover, 
 these artists possess the inestimable advan- 
 tage of being useful in the evening parties. 
 However, people who desire a superlative 
 rara avis, can hardly hope to bring two 
 together in the same room. We may add 
 that there is not a meanness of which any 
 woman, a leader of society, is not capable, 
 in order to embellish her salon with a 
 celebrated composer. The delicate atten- 
 tions usually employed to secure a painter 
 or only a literary man, become quite in- 
 adequate when the subject is a tradesman 
 of sounds. For him allurements and praise 
 hitherto unknown are employed. His 
 hands are kissed like those of a King, he is 
 worshipped as a God, when he has deigned 
 
AFLUAT. 45 
 
 to execute his Reyina Cwli. A hair of his 
 beard is worn in a ring ; a button fallen 
 from his breeches one evening in a violent 
 movement of his arm, during the execution 
 of the grand finale of his Boiix Repos, 
 becomes a medal, a sacred medal worn in 
 the bosom hanging from a golden chain. 
 
 Painters are of less value, although still 
 rather sought after. They are not so 
 divine and more Bohemian. Their man- 
 ners are less courteous and above all 
 not sufficiently sublime. They often 
 replace inspiration by broad jests and 
 sUly puns. They carry with them too 
 much of the perfume of the studio, and 
 those who by dint of watchfulness have 
 managed to get rid of it, only exchange 
 one odour for another, that of affectation. 
 And then they are a fickle, light, and 
 bragging set. No one is certain of keep- 
 ing them long, whereas the musician builds 
 his nest in the family circle. 
 
 Of late years, the literary man has been 
 sought after. He presents many great 
 
46 
 
 AFLOAT. 
 
 advantages : ho talks, he talks lengthily, 
 he talks a great deal, his conversation 
 suits every kind of public, and as his 
 profession is to be intelligent, he can be 
 listened to and admired in all security. 
 
 The ■womau Avho is possessed with the 
 mania for having at her house a literary 
 man, just as one would have a parrot 
 whoso chatter should attract all the 
 neighbouring concierges, has to take her 
 choice betAveen poets and novelists. There 
 is more of the ideal about the poet, more 
 
AFLOAT. 47 
 
 spontaneity about tlio novelist. The poets 
 arc more sentimental, the novelists more 
 positive. It is a matter of taste and 
 constitution. The poet has more charm, 
 the novelist has often more wit. But the 
 novelist presents dangers that are not met 
 
 with in the poet: he pries, pillages, and 
 makes capital of all he sees. With him 
 there is no tranquillity, no certainty that 
 he will not, some day, lay you hare in the 
 pages of a book. His eye is like a pump 
 that sucks up everything, like the hand of 
 a thief that is always at work. Nothing 
 escapes him ; he gathers and picks up 
 
48 AFLOAT. 
 
 ceaselessly ; he notices tlie movements, tlie 
 gestures, the intentions, the slightest inci- 
 dents and events ; he picks up the smallest 
 words, the smallest actions, the smallest 
 thing. He makes stock from morning 
 till night of these observations out of 
 which he will make a good telling story, a 
 story that will make the round of the 
 world, which will be read, discussed, com- 
 mented upon by thousands and thousands 
 of people. And the most terrible part of 
 all is that the wretch cannot help drawing 
 striking portraits, in spite of himself, 
 unconsciously, because he sees things as 
 they are, and he must relate what he sees. 
 Notwithstanding the cunning he uses in 
 disguising his personages, it will be said : 
 " Did you recognize Mr. X . . . and Mrs. 
 Y . . . They are striking resemblances .'' " 
 
 It is assuredly as dangerous for people 
 in good society to invite and make much 
 of novelists, as it would be for a miller to 
 breed rats in his mill. 
 
 And yet they are held in great favour. 
 
AFLOAT. 49 
 
 When, therefore, a woman has fixed her 
 choice on the writer she intends to adopt, 
 she lays siege to him by means of every 
 variety of compliments, attractions, and 
 indulgence. Like water which, drop by 
 drop, slowly wears away the hardest rock, 
 the fulsome praise falls at each word on the 
 impressionable heart of the literary man. 
 Then, when she sees that he is moved, 
 touched, and won by the constant flattery; 
 she isolates him, severing, little by little, 
 the ties he may have elsewhere, and im- 
 perceptibly accustoms him to come to her 
 house, make himself happy, and there 
 enshrine his thoughts. In order the more 
 thoroughly to acclimatise him in her house, 
 she paves the way for his success, brings 
 him forward, sets him in relief, and dis- 
 plays for him, before all the old habitues of 
 the household, marked consideration and 
 boundless admiration. 
 
 At last, realising that he is now an idol, 
 he remains in the temple. He finds, 
 moreover, that the position afi'ords him 
 
50 AFLOAT. 
 
 every advantage, for all the other women 
 lavish their most delicate favours upon 
 him to entice him away from his con- 
 queror. If, however, he is clever, he 
 will not hearken to the entreaties and 
 coquetries with which he is overwhelmed. 
 And the more faithful he appears, the 
 more he will be sought after, implored, and 
 loved. Ah ! let him beware of allowing 
 these drawing-room syrens to entice him 
 away ; he will immediately lose two-thirds 
 of his value, if he once becomes public 
 property. 
 
 Soon he forms a literary circle, a church 
 of which he is the deity, the only deity, for 
 true faiths never have more than one God. 
 People will flock to the house to see him, 
 to hear him, to admire him, as one comes 
 from afar to visit certain shrines. He will 
 be envied ! She will be envied ! Thoy 
 will converse upon literature as priests talk 
 of dogmas, scientifically and solemnly; 
 they will be listened to, both the one and 
 the other, and on leaving this literary 
 
AFLOAT. 51 
 
 salon, one will feel as though one were 
 quitting a cathedral. 
 
 Other men are also sought after, but in 
 a lesser degree; for instance, generals, 
 who, neglected by society and not held in 
 much greater consideration than deputes, 
 are yet in demand amongst the middle 
 classes. The depute is only in request at 
 moments of crisis. He is kept on hand, by 
 a dinner now and then during a parliamen- 
 tary lull. The scholar has also his par- 
 tisans — every variety of taste exists in 
 nature ; and a clerk in office is himself 
 highly esteemed, by folk who live up six 
 pairs of stairs. However, these sort of 
 people do not come to Cannes ; there are 
 only a few timid representatives to be seen 
 of the middle class. 
 
 It is only before twelve o'clock that 
 the noble visitors are to be met on the 
 Croisette. 
 
 The Croisette is a long semi-circular 
 promenade that follows the line of the 
 beach, from the headland in front of Sainte- 
 
52 AFLOAT. 
 
 Marguerite down to tlie harbour overlooked 
 by the old town. 
 
 Young and slender women, — it is good 
 style to be thin, — dressed in the English 
 fashion, walk along with rapid step, 
 escorted by active young men in lawn- 
 tennis suits. But from time to time appears 
 some poor emaciated creature, dragging 
 himself along with languid step, and lean- 
 ing on the arm of a mother, brother or 
 sister. He coughs and gasps, poor thing, 
 wrapped up in shawls notwithstanding the 
 heat, and watches us, as we pass, with 
 deep, despairing and envious glances. 
 
 He suffers and dies, for this charming 
 and balmy country is the hospital of society 
 and the flowery cemetery of aristocratic 
 Europe. 
 
 The terrible disease which never relents, 
 and is now called tuberculosis, the disease 
 that gnaws, burns and destroys men by 
 thousands, seems to have chosen this coast 
 on which to finish off its victims. 
 
 How truly in every part of the world. 
 
54 AFLOAT. 
 
 tliis lovely and terrible spot must be 
 accursed, this ante-room of Deatb, per- 
 fumed and sweet, where so many humble 
 and royal families, burghers or princes, have 
 left someone, some child on whom they 
 concentrated all their hopes, and lavished 
 all their love and tenderness. 
 
 I call to mind Mentone, the warmest 
 and healthiest of these winter residences. 
 Even as in warlike cities, the fortresses 
 can be seen standing out on the surround- 
 ing heights, so in this region of moribunds, 
 the cemetery is visible on the summit of a 
 hill. 
 
 What a spot it would be for the living, 
 that garden where the dead lie asleep ! 
 Roses, roses, everywhere roses. They are 
 blood red or pale, or white, or streaked 
 with veins of scarlet. The tombs, the 
 paths, the places still unoccupied and 
 which to-morrow will be filled, all are 
 covered with them. Their strong perfume 
 brings giddiness, making both head and 
 legs falter. 
 
AFLOAT. 55 
 
 And all those who lie there, were but 
 sixteen, eighteen, or twenty years of 
 age. 
 
 One wanders on from tomb to tomb, 
 reading the names of those youthful 
 victims, killed by the implacable disease. 
 'Tis a children's cemetery, a cemetery simi- 
 lar to the young girls' balls, where no 
 married couples are admitted. 
 
 From the cemetery the view extends to 
 the left in the direction of Italy as far as 
 the Bordighera headland, where the white 
 houses stretch out into the sea; and to 
 the right as far as Cape Martin, which dips 
 its leafy coast in the water. 
 
 Nevertheless all around, all along these 
 delightful shores, we are in the home of 
 Death. But it is discreet, veiled, full of 
 tact and bashfulness, well bred in fact. 
 Never does one meet it face to face, 
 although at every moment it passes near. 
 
 It might even be thought that no one 
 •dies in this country, so thorough is the 
 complicity of deceit in which this sovereign 
 
56 AFLOAT. 
 
 revels. But liow it is felt, how it is 
 detected ; how often a glimpse is caught of 
 its black robes ! Truly all the roses and 
 the orange blossoms are requisite, to pre- 
 vent the breeze being laden with the dread 
 smell which is exhaled from the chamber 
 of death. 
 
 Never is a coifin seen in the streets, 
 never any funeral trappings, never is a 
 death-knell heard. Yesterday's emaciated 
 pedestrian no longer passes beneath your 
 window, and that is all. If you are 
 astonished at no longer seeing him, and 
 inquire after him, the landlord and servants 
 tell you with a smile, that he had got 
 better and by the doctor's advice had left 
 for Italy. In each hotel Death has its 
 secret stairs, its confidants, and its accom- 
 plices. A philosopher of olden times would 
 have said many fine things upon the con- 
 trast of the elegance and misery which 
 here elbow one another. 
 
 It is twelve o'clock, the promenade is 
 now deserted, and I return on board the 
 
AFLOAT. 57 
 
 Bel- Ami, where awaits me an unpretending 
 breakfast prepared by Eaymond, wbom I 
 find dressed up in a white apron, frying 
 potatoes. 
 
 All the remainder of the day, I read. 
 
 The wind was still violently blowing, 
 and the yacht danced between her anchors, 
 for we had been obliged to let go the star- 
 board one also. The motion ended by 
 benumbing me, and I fell into a long doze. 
 When Bernard came into the cabin to 
 light the candles it was seven o'clock, and 
 as the surf along the quay made landing 
 difficult, I dined on my boat. 
 
 After dinner I went up and sat in the 
 open air. Around me Cannes stretched forth 
 her many lights. Nothing can be prettier 
 than a town lighted up and seen from the 
 sea. On the left, the old quarter with its 
 houses that seemed to climb one upon the 
 other, mingled its lights with that of the 
 stars ; on the right, the gas lamps of the 
 Croisette extended like an enormous 
 serpent a mile and a half long. 
 
 E 2 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 And I reflected that in all the villas, 
 in all the hotels, people were gathered 
 together this evening, as they were last 
 night, as they will he to-morrow, and that 
 they are talking. Talking ! about what ? 
 the Princes ! the weather ! And then ? . . . 
 the weather ! . . . the Princes ! . . . and then 
 . . . about nothing ! 
 
 Can anything be more dreary than 
 table d'hote conversation? I have lived 
 in hotels, I have endured the emptiness of 
 the human soul as it is there laid bare. In 
 truth, one must be hedged in by the most 
 determined indifference, not to weep with 
 grief, disgust, and shame, when one hears 
 men talk. Man, the ordinary man, rich, 
 known, esteemed, respected, held in con- 
 sideration, is satisfied with himself, and 
 he knows nothing, he understands nothing, 
 yet he talks of intelligence as though he 
 knew all about it. 
 
 How blinded and intoxicated we must 
 be by our foolish pride, to fancy ourselves 
 anything more than animals slightly su-^ 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 59 
 
 perior to other animals. listen to them, 
 the fools, sen ted round the table ! They 
 are talking ! Talking with gentle con- 
 fiding ingenuousness, and they imagine 
 that they are exchanging ideas ! AVhat 
 
 ideas ? They say where they have been 
 walking : " It was a very pretty walk, but 
 rather cold coming home ; " " the cooking 
 is not bad in the hotel, although hotel 
 food is always rather spicy." And they 
 relate what they have done, what they like, 
 what they believe. 
 
 I fancy I behold the deform.ity of their 
 
60 AFLOAT. 
 
 souls as a monstrous foetus in a jar of 
 spirits of -wine. I assist at the slow birth 
 of tlie commonplace sayings they con- 
 stantly repeat ; I watch the words as they 
 drop from the granary of stupidity into 
 their imbecile mouths, and from their 
 mouths into the inert atmosphere which 
 bears them to my ears. 
 
 But their ideas, their noblest, most 
 solemn, most respected ideas, are they not 
 the unimpeachable proof of the omnipo- 
 tence of stupidity, — eternal, universal, in- 
 destructible stupidity ? 
 
 All their conceptions of God, an awk- 
 ward deity, whose first creations are such 
 failures that he must needs recreate them, 
 a deity who listens to our secrets and notes 
 them down, a God who, in turn, policeman, 
 Jesuit, lawyer, gardener, is conceived now 
 in cuirass, now in robes, now in wooden 
 shoes ; then the negations of God based 
 upon pure terrestrial logic, the arguments 
 for and against, the history of religious 
 
AFLOAT. 61 
 
 beliefs, of schisms, heresies, philosophies, 
 the affirmations as well as the doubts, 
 the puerility of principles, the ferocious 
 and bloody violence of the originators of 
 hypotheses, the utter chaos of contestation , 
 in short, every miserable effort of this 
 wretchedly impotent being man, impotent 
 in conception, in imagination, in knowledge, 
 all prove that he was thrown upon this 
 absurdly small world for the sole purpose 
 of eating, drinking, manufacturing children 
 and little songs, and killing his neighbour 
 by way of pastime. 
 
 Happy are those whom life satisfies, 
 who are amused and content. 
 
 There are some such who, easily pleased, 
 are delighted with everything. They love 
 the sun and the rain, the snow and the 
 fog ; they love festivities as well as the 
 calm of their own homes ; they love all 
 they see, all they do, all they say, all they 
 hear. 
 
 They lead either an easy life, quiet and 
 satisfied amid their offspring, or an agi- 
 
62 AFLOAT. 
 
 tated existence full of pleasures and 
 amusement. 
 
 In neitlier case are they dull. 
 
 Life, for them, is an amusing kind of 
 play, in which they are themselves actors ; 
 an excellent and varied show, which 
 though offering nothing unexpected, 
 thoroughly delights them. 
 
 Other men, however, who run through 
 at a glance the narrow circle of human 
 satisfactions, remain dismayed before the 
 emptiness of happiness, the monotony and 
 poverty of earthly joys. 
 
 As soon as they have reached thirty 
 years of age all is ended for them. What 
 have they to expect ? Nothing now can 
 interest them ; they have made the circuit 
 of our meagre pleasures. 
 
 Happy are those who know not the 
 loathsome weariness of the same acts 
 constantly repeated ; happy are those who 
 have the strength to recommence each- day 
 the same task, with the same gestures, 
 amid the same furniture, in front of the 
 
AFLOAT. 63 
 
 same horizon, under the same sky, to go 
 out in the same streets, where they meet 
 the same faces and the same ' animals. 
 Happy are those who do not perceive with 
 unutterable disgust that nothing changes, 
 and that all is weariness. 
 
 We must indeed be a slow and narrow- 
 minded race to be so easily pleased and satis- 
 fied with what is. How is it that the worldly 
 audience has not yet called out, " Curtain," 
 has not yet demanded the next act, with 
 other beings than mankind, other manners , 
 other pleasures, other plants, other planets, 
 other inventions, other adventures ? 
 
 Is it possible no one has j^et felt a 
 loathing for the sameness of the human 
 face, of the animals which by their un- 
 varying instincts, transmitted in their 
 seed from the first to the last of their 
 race, seem to be but living machinery ; a 
 hatred of landscapes eternally the same, 
 and of pleasures never varied ? 
 
 Console yourself, it is said, by the love 
 of science and art. 
 
64 AFLOAT. 
 
 But is it not evident that we are always 
 shut up in ourselves, without ever being 
 able to quit ourselves, for ever condemnecl 
 to drag the chains of our wingless dream. 
 
 All the progress obtained by our cere- 
 bral effort, consists in the ascertainment of 
 material facts by means of instruments 
 ridiculously imperfect, which however 
 make up in a certain degree for the in- 
 efficiency of our organs. Every twenty 
 years, some unhappy inquirer, who gener- 
 ally dies in the attempt, discovers that the 
 atmosphere contains a gas hitherto un- 
 known, that an imponderable, inexplic- 
 able, unqualifiable force can be obtained 
 by rubbing a piece of wax on cloth ; that 
 amongst the innumerable unknown stars, 
 there is one that has not yet been noticed 
 in the immediate vicinity of another, 
 which had not only been observed, but 
 even designated by name for many years. 
 What matter ? 
 
 Our diseases are due to microbes ? 
 Very well. But where do those microbes 
 
AFLOAT. 65 
 
 come from ? and the diseases of these 
 invisible ones ? And the suns, whence do 
 they come from ? 
 
 We know nothing, we understand no- 
 thing, we can do nothing, we foresee 
 nothing, we imagine nothing, we are shut 
 up, imprisoned in ourselves. And there 
 are people who marvel at the genius of 
 humanity ! 
 
 Art ? Painting consists in reproducing 
 with colouring matter monotonous land- 
 scapes, which seldom resemhle nature ; in 
 delineating men, and striving without ever 
 succeeding, to give the aspect of living 
 beings. Obstinately and uselessly one 
 struggles to imitate what is ; and the 
 result is a motionless and dumb copy of 
 the actions of life, which is barely compre- 
 hensible even to the educated eye that one 
 has sought to attract. 
 
 Wherefore such efforts ? Wherefore 
 such a vain imitation ? Wherefore this 
 trivial reproduction of things in themselves 
 so dull ? How petty ! 
 
66 AFLOAT. 
 
 Poets do with words what painters try 
 to do with colours. Again, wherefore ? 
 
 When one has read four of the most 
 talented, of the most ingenious authors, it 
 is idle to open another. And nothing 
 more can he learned. They also, these 
 men, can hut imitate men. They exhaust 
 themselres in sterile lahour. For mankind 
 changing not, their useless art is immutahle. 
 Ever since our poor minds hare awakened 
 man is the same ; his sentiments, his 
 heliefs, his sensations are the same. He 
 has neither advanced nor retrograded ; he 
 has never moved. Of what use is it to me 
 to learn what I am, to read what I think, 
 to see myself portrayed in the trivial 
 adventures of a novel ? 
 
 Ah ! if poets could vanquish space, ex- 
 plore the planets, discover other worlds, 
 other beings; vary unceasingly for my 
 mind the nature and form of things, con- 
 vey me constantly through a changeful 
 and surprising Unknown, open for me 
 mysterious gates in unexpected and mar- 
 
AFLOAT. 67 
 
 vellous horizons, I would read them night 
 and day. But they can, impotent as they 
 are, but change the place of a word, and 
 show me my own image, as the painters do. 
 Of what use is all this ? 
 
 For man's thought is motionless. 
 
 And the precise limits, so nigh, so 
 insurmountable, once attained, it turns 
 like a horse in a circus, like a fly shut 
 up in a bottle, fluttering against the 
 sides and uselessly dashing itself against 
 them. 
 
 And yet, for want of any better occu- 
 pation, thought is always a solace, when 
 one lives alone. 
 
 On this little boat, rocked by the sea, 
 that a wave could fill and upset, I know, I 
 feel, how true it is that nothing we know 
 exists, for the earth which floats in empty 
 space is even more isolated, more lost than 
 this skiff on the billows. Their import- 
 ance is the same, their destiny will be 
 accomplished. And I rejoice at under- 
 standing the nothingness of the belief and 
 
68 
 
 AFLOAT. 
 
 the vanity of the hopes which our insect- 
 like pride has begotten ! 
 
 I went to bed, cradled by the pitching 
 of the boat, and slept with the deep 
 slumber that one sleeps at sea, till the 
 
 _jr..4 .X' 
 
 :^Sfeh'^ 
 
 moment when Bernard awoke me to 
 say: 
 
 " Bad weather, sii', we cannot sail this 
 morning." The wind had fallen, but the 
 sea, very rough in the ojjen, would not 
 allow of our makiug sail for Saint- 
 Raphael. 
 
AFLOAT. 69 
 
 Another day that must be spent at 
 Cannes ! 
 
 At about twelve o'clock, a westerly wind 
 again got up, less strong than the day 
 before, and I resolved to take advantage of 
 it and visit the squadron in gulf Juan. 
 
 In crossing the roads, the Bel-Ami 
 jumped about like a goat, and I had to 
 steer very carefully in order to avoid, with 
 each wave which took us broadsides, hav- 
 ing a mass of water dashed in my face. 
 Soon however I was sheltered by the 
 islands and entered the channel under the 
 fortress of Sainte-Marguerite. 
 
 Its straight wall stretches down to the 
 rocks, washed by the waves, and its summit 
 hardly overtops the sHghtly elevated coast 
 of the island. It is somewhat like a head 
 crammed down between two high shoulders. 
 The spot where Bazaine descended can 
 be easily made out. 
 
 It was not necessary to be much of a 
 gymnast to slide down those accommodat- 
 ing rocks. 
 
10 AFLOAT. 
 
 The escape was related to me with 
 every detail, by a man who pretended to 
 be, and probably was, thoroughly well 
 informed. 
 
 Bazaine was allowed a good deal of 
 liberty, his wife and children being per- 
 mitted to come and see him every day. 
 Madame Bazaine, who was an energetic 
 woman, declared to her husband that she 
 would leave him for ever, and carry off the 
 children, if he would not make his escape, 
 and she explained her plan. He hesitated 
 at first, on account of the danger of the 
 flight and the doubtfulness of success, but 
 when he saw that his wife was determined 
 to carry out her plan, he consented. 
 
 Thereupon, every day some toys for the 
 little ones were brought into the fortress, 
 amongst others an entire set of appliances 
 for drawing-room gymnastics. Out of these 
 toys was made the knotted rope that the 
 Marshal was to make use of. It was very 
 slowly made, in order to give rise to no sus- 
 picion, and when finished it was hid away 
 
AFLOAT. 71 
 
 by a friendly hand in a corner of the prison 
 yard. 
 
 The date of the flight was then decided 
 upon. They chose a Sunday, the super- 
 vision appearing to be less rigorous on that 
 day. 
 
 Madame Bazaine then absented herself 
 for a few days. 
 
 The Marshal usually walked about in the 
 yard till eight o'clock in the evening, in 
 company with the governor of the prison, 
 a pleasant man whose agreeable conversa- 
 tion was a resource to Bazaine. Then he 
 would go back to his rooms, which the 
 chief jailor locked and bolted in the pre- 
 sence of his superior officer. 
 
 On the evening of the escape, Bazaine 
 pretended he was indisposed, and expressed 
 a wish to retire an hour earlier than 
 usual. He returned therefore to his 
 apartment, but as soon as the governor had 
 gone off' to call the jailor and tell him to 
 lock up the captive, the Marshal came out 
 again quickly and hid himself in the yard. 
 
72 AFLOAT. 
 
 The empty prison was locked up, and 
 each man went home. 
 
 At about eleven o'clock Bazaine, armed 
 with the ladder, left his hiding place, 
 fastened the ropes, and made his descent 
 on to the rocks. 
 
 At dawn of day, an accomplice un- 
 fastened the ladder and threw it over the 
 walls. 
 
 Towards eight o'clock in the morning, 
 the governor, surprised at not seeing any- 
 thing of his prisoner, who was wont to be 
 an early riser, sent to enquire about him. 
 The Marshal's valet refused, however, to 
 disturb his master. 
 
 At length at nine o'clock, the governor 
 forced open the door and found the cage 
 empty. 
 
 Ou her side Madame Bazaine, in order 
 to carry out her scheme, had applied to a 
 man who was indebted to her husband for 
 a most important service. She appealed 
 to a grateful heart, and gained an ally 
 both energetic and devoted. Together 
 
F 2 
 
74 AFLOAT. 
 
 they settled all the details ; she then went 
 in an assumed name to Genoa, and under 
 pretext of an excursion to Naples hired for 
 a thousand francs (forty pounds sterling) a 
 day, a little Italian steamer, stipulating 
 that the trip should last at least a week, 
 and that it might be extended to another 
 week on the same terms. 
 
 The vessel started, but no sooner were 
 they at sea, than the traveller appeared to 
 change her mind, and asked the captain if 
 he would object to going as far as Cannes 
 to fetch her sister-in-law. The sailor wil- 
 lingly consented, and he dropped anchor on 
 Sunday evening in the gulf Juan. 
 
 Madame Bazaine was set on shore and 
 ordered the boat to keep within hail. Htr 
 devoted accomplice was awaiting her in 
 another boat near the promenade of the 
 Croisette, and they crossed the channel 
 which separates the mainland from the 
 little island of Sainte-Marguerite. There 
 her husband was waiting on the rocks, his 
 clothes torn, face bruised, and hands bleed- 
 
AFLOAT. 75 
 
 ing. The sea being rather rough, he was 
 obliged to wade through the water to 
 reach the boat, which otherwise would 
 have been dashed to pieces against the 
 coast. 
 
 When they returned to the mainland, 
 they cast the boat adrift. 
 
 They rejoined the first boat, and then at 
 last the vessel, which had remained with 
 steam up. Madame Bazaine informed 
 the captain that her sister-in-law was not 
 well enough to join her, and pointing to 
 the Marshal, she added : 
 
 " Not having a servant, I have hired a 
 valet. The fool has j ust tumbled down on 
 the rocks and got himself in the mess you 
 see. Send him, if you please, down to 
 the sailors, and give him what is necessary 
 to dress his wounds and mend his clothes." 
 
 Bazaine went down and spent the night 
 in the forecastle. 
 
 The next morning at break of day, they 
 were out at sea ; then Madame Bazaine 
 again changed her mind, and pleading 
 
K AFLOAT. 
 
 indisposition, had herself reconducted to 
 Genoa. 
 
 However, the news of the escape had 
 already spread, and the populace hearing 
 of it, a clamouring mob assembled under, 
 the hotel windows. The uproar soon 
 became so violent, that the terrified land- 
 lord insisted on the travellers escaping by 
 a private door. 
 
 I relate this story as it was told to me, 
 but I guarantee nothing. 
 
 We drew near the squadron, the heavy 
 ironclads standing out in single file, like 
 battle towers built in the sea. They were 
 the Colbert, the Derastation , the Amiral- 
 Diiperre, the Cotirhct, the Indomptctlle, 
 and the Richelieu ; two despatch boats, ihe 
 Hirondelle and the Milan ; and four 
 torpedo boats going through evolutions in 
 the gulf. 
 
 I wanted to visit the Courhet, as it passes 
 for the most perfect type in the French 
 navy. 
 
 Nothing can give a better idea of human 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 ni 
 
 labour, of the intricate and formidable 
 labour done by the ingeniously clever 
 hands of the puny human animal, than the 
 enormous iron citadels which float and sail 
 about bearing an army of soldiers, an 
 arsenal of monstrous arms, the enormous 
 
 masses of which are made of tiny pieces 
 fitted, soldered,, forged, bolted together, 
 a toil of ants and giants, -which shows 
 at the same time all the genius, all the 
 weakness, and all the irretrievable bar- 
 barousness of the race, so active and so 
 feeble, directing all its efforts towards 
 creating instruments for its own self- 
 destruction. 
 
78 AFLOAT. 
 
 Those who in former days raised up 
 cathedrals in stone, carved as finely as 
 any lacework, fairy-like palaces to shelter 
 childish and pious fancies, were they 
 worth less than those who now-a-days 
 launch forth on the sea these iron houses, 
 real temples of Death 't 
 
 At the same moment that I leave the 
 ship to get on board my cockleshell, I hear 
 the sound of firing on shore. It is the 
 regiment at Antibes practising rifle shooting 
 on the sands and amongst the pine-woods. 
 The smoke rises in white flakes, like 
 evaporating clouds of cotton, and I can see 
 the red trousers of the soldiers as they 
 run along the beach. 
 
 The naval officers suddenly become in- 
 terested, point their glasses landwards, and 
 their hearts beat faster at this spectacle of 
 mimic warfare. 
 
 At the mere mention of the word war, 
 I am seized with a sense of bewilderment, 
 as though I heard of witchcraft, of the 
 inquisition, of some far distant thing, 
 
AFLOAT. 19 
 
 ended long ago, abominable and monstrous, 
 against all natural law. 
 
 When we talk of cannibals, we proudly 
 smile and proclaim our superiority over 
 these savages. Which are the savages, 
 the true savages ? Those who fight to eat 
 the vanquished, or those who fight to kill, 
 only to kill ? 
 
 The gallant little soldiers running about 
 over there, are as surely doomed to death, 
 as the flocks of sheep driven along the road 
 by the butcher. They will fall on some 
 plain, with their heads split open by sabre 
 cuts, or their chests riddled by bullets, and 
 yet they are young men who might work, 
 produce something, be useful. Their 
 fathers are old and poverty-stricken, their 
 mothers, who during twenty years have 
 loved them, adored them as only mothers can 
 adore, may perchance hear in six months 
 or a year, that the son, the child, the big 
 fellow, reared with so much care, at such 
 an expense and with so much love, has 
 been cast in a hole like a dead dog, after 
 
80 AFLOAT. 
 
 having been ripped open by a bullet and 
 trampled, crushed, mangled by the rush of 
 cavalry charges. Why have they killed 
 her boy, her beautiful boy, her sole hope, 
 her pride, her life ? She cannot under- 
 stand. Yes, indeed, why ? 
 
 War ! fighting ! slaughtering ! butcher- 
 ing men ! And to think that now, 
 in our own century, with all our civi- 
 lisation, with the expansion of science 
 and the height of philosophy to which 
 the human race is supposed to have 
 attained, we should have schools, in which 
 we teach the art of killing, of killing from 
 afar, to perfection, numbers of people at 
 the same time ; poor devils, innocent men, 
 fathers of families, men of untarnished 
 reputation. The most astounding thing is 
 that the people do not rise up against the 
 governing power. What difference is there 
 then between monarchies and republics? 
 And what is more astounding still, why 
 does society not rise up bodily in rebellion 
 at the word " war." 
 
82 AFLOAT. 
 
 Ah yes, we shall ever continue to live 
 borne down by the old and odious customs, 
 the criminal prejudices, the ferocious ideas 
 of our barbarous forefathers, for we are but 
 animals, and we shall remain animals led 
 only by instinct, that nothing will ever 
 change. 
 
 Should we not have spurned any other 
 than Victor Hugo, who should have 
 launched forth the grand cry of deliverance 
 and truth ? 
 
 " To-day, might is called violence, and 
 is beginning to be condemned ; war is 
 arraigned. Civilisation, at the demand 
 of all humanity, directs an inquiry and 
 indicts the great criminal brief against 
 conquerors and generals. Tlie nations 
 are beginning to understand that the 
 aggrandizement of a crime can in no 
 way lessen it; that if murder is a crime, 
 to murder a great many does not create 
 any attenuating circumstance ; that if 
 robbery is a disgrace, invasicn cannot be 
 a glory. 
 
AFLOAT. 83 
 
 " Ah ! Let lis proclaim the peremptory 
 truth, let us dishonour war." 
 
 Idle auger, poetic indignation ! War is 
 more venerated than ever. 
 
 A clever artist in such matters, a 
 slaughtering genius, M. de Moltke, replied 
 one day to some peace delegates, in the 
 following extraordinary words : 
 
 " War is holy and of divine institution ; 
 it is one of the sacred laws of nature ; 
 it keeps alive in men all the great and 
 noble sentiments, honour, disinterestedness, 
 virtue, courage, in one word it prevents 
 them from falling into the most hideous 
 materialism." 
 
 Therefore to collect a herd of some four 
 hundred thousand men, march day and 
 night without respite, to think of nothing, 
 study nothing, learn nothing, read nothing, 
 be of no earthly use to any one, rot with 
 dirt, lie down in mire, live like brutes in a 
 continual besotmtnt, pillage towns, burn 
 villages, ruin nations; then meeting another 
 similar agglomeration of human flesh, rush 
 
84 AFLOAT. 
 
 upoa it, shed lakes of blood, cover plains 
 with pounded flesh mingled with muddy 
 and bloody earth ; pile up heaps of slain ; 
 have arms and legs blown off, brains 
 scattered without benefit to any one, and 
 perish at the corner of some field while 
 your old parents, your wife and children 
 are dying of hunger ; this is what is called, 
 not falling into the most hideous ma- 
 terialism ! 
 
 Warriors are the scourges of the earth. 
 We struggle against nature and ignorance ; 
 against obstacles of all kinds, in order to 
 lessen the hardships of our miserable ex- 
 istence. Men, benefactors, scholars wear 
 out their lives toiling, seeking what may 
 assist, what may help, what may solace 
 their brethren. Eager in their useful 
 work, they pile up discovery on discovery, 
 enlarging the human mind, extending 
 science, adding something each day to the 
 stock of human knowledge, to the welfare, 
 the comfort, the strength of their country. 
 
 War is declared. In six months the 
 
AFLOAT. 85 
 
 generals have destroyed tlie efforts of 
 twenty years' patience and genius. And 
 this is what is called, not falling into the 
 most hideous materialism. 
 
 We have seen war. We have seen men 
 maddened and gone back to their brute 
 estate, killing for mere pleasure, killing out 
 of terror, out of bravado, from sheer osten- 
 tation. Then wVien right no longer exists, 
 when law is dead, when all notion of justice 
 has disappeared, we have seen ruthlessly 
 shot down, innocent beings who, picked 
 up along the road, had become objects of 
 suspicion simply because they Avere afraid. 
 We have seen dogs as they lay chained up 
 at their master's gate, killed in order to 
 try a new revolver ; we have seen cows 
 riddled with bullets as they lay in the 
 fields, without reason, only to fire ofi' guns, 
 just for fun. 
 
 And this is what is called, not falling 
 into the most hideous materialism. To 
 invade a country, to kill the man who 
 defends his home on the plea that he wears 
 
86 AFLOAT. 
 
 a smock and has no forage cap on his 
 head, to burn down the houses of the poor 
 creatures who are without bread, to break, 
 to steal furniture, drink the wine found in 
 the cellars, violate the women found in the 
 streets, consume thoasandsof francs' worth 
 of powder, and leave behind misery and 
 cholera. 
 
 This is what is called, not falling into 
 the most hideous materialism. 
 
 AVhat have they ever done to show 
 their intelligence, these valiant warriors ? 
 Nothing. What have they invented ? 
 Guns and cannons. That is all. 
 
 The inventor of the wheelbarrow, has he 
 not done more for humanity by the simple 
 and practical idea of fitting a wheel 
 between two poles, than the inventor of 
 modern fortifications ? 
 
 What remains of Greece ? Books and 
 marbles. Is she great by what she 
 conquered, or by what she produced ? 
 Was it the invasion of the Persians that 
 prevented her from falling into the most 
 
AFLOAT. 87 
 
 hideous materialism ? Was it the in- 
 vasion of the barbarians that saved Rome 
 and regenerated her ? 
 
 Did Napoleon the First continue the 
 great intellectual movement begun by the 
 philosophers at the end of the last century ? 
 
 Well, yes, since governments assume 
 the right of death over the people, there is 
 nothing astonishing in the people some- 
 times assuming the right of death over 
 governments. 
 
 They defend themselves. They are 
 right. No one has an absolute right to 
 govern others. It can only be done for 
 the good of those who are governed. Who- 
 soever governs must consider it as much 
 his duty to avoid war, as it is that of the 
 captain of a vessel to avoid shipwreck. 
 
 When a captain has lost his ship, he is 
 judged and condemned if found guilty of 
 negligence or even of incapacity. 
 
 Why should not governments be judged 
 after the declaration of every war ? If the 
 people understood this, if they took the law 
 
88 AFLOAT. 
 
 into their own hands against the murdering 
 powers, if they refused to allow themselves 
 to be killed without a reason, if they used 
 their weapons against those who distributed 
 them to slaughter with, that day war 
 would indeed be a dead letter. But that 
 day will never dawn ! 
 
AuAY, J^iiil Slh. 
 
 " Fixe weather, sir." 
 
 I get up and go on deck. It is three 
 o'clock in the morning ; the sea is calm, 
 the infi.nite heavens look like an immense 
 shady vault sown with grains of fire. A 
 very light breeze comes from off the land. 
 
 The coffee is hot, we swallow it down, 
 and, without losing a moment, in order to 
 take advantage of the favourable wind, we 
 set sail. 
 
 Once more we glide over the waters 
 towards the open sea. The coast dis- 
 appears, all around us looks black. It is 
 indeed a sensation, an enervating and 
 delicious emotion to plunge onward into 
 the empty night, into the deep silence on 
 the sea, far from everything. It seems as 
 
 a 2 
 
90 AFLOAT. 
 
 though one was quitting the world, as 
 though one would never reach any land, 
 as though there were no more shores and 
 even no more days. At my feet, a little 
 lantern throws a light upon the compass, 
 that guides me on my way. We must 
 run at least three miles in the open to 
 round Cape Roux and the Drammont in 
 safety, whatever may be the wind when 
 the sun has risen. To avoid any accidents, 
 I have had the side-lights lit, red on the 
 port and green on the starboard side. And 
 I enjoy with rapture this silent, uninter- 
 rupted, quiet flight. 
 
 Suddenly a cry is heard in front of us. 
 I am startled, for the voice is near ; and I 
 can perceive nothing, nothing but the 
 obscure wall of darkness into which I am 
 plunging, and which closes again behind 
 me. Raymond who watches forward says 
 to me : " 'Tis a tartan going east, put 
 the helm up sir, we shall pass astern." 
 And of a sudden, nigh' at hand, uprises a 
 vague but startling phantom ; the large 
 
AFLOAT. 91 
 
 drifting shadow of a big sail, seen but for 
 a few seconds and quickly vanisbing. 
 Nothing is more strange, more fantastic, 
 and more thrilling, than these rapid appa- 
 ritions at sea during the night. The 
 fishing and sand boats carry no lights, 
 they are therefore only seen as they pass 
 by, and they impart a tightening of the 
 heart strings, as of some supernatural en- 
 counter. 
 
 I hear in the distance the whistling of 
 a bird. It approaches, passes by, and 
 goes off. Oh that I could wander like it ! 
 
 At last dawn breaks, slowly, gently, 
 without a cloud, and the day begins, a 
 real summer's day. 
 
 Raymond asserts that we shall have an 
 east wind, Bernard still believes in a 
 westerly one, and advises my changing our 
 course, and sailing on the starboard tack 
 straight towards the Drammont, which 
 stands out in the distance. I am at once 
 of his opinion, and under the gentle breath 
 of a dying breeze, we draw nearer to the 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 93 
 
 Esterel. The long red shore drops into 
 the hlue water, giving it a violet tinge. 
 It is strange, pretty, bristling with num- 
 berless points and gulfs, capricious and 
 
 X.. 
 
 
 coquettish rocks, the thousand whims 
 of a much admired mountain. (.)n its 
 slopes, the pine forests reach up to the 
 granite summits, which resemble castles, 
 towns, and armies of stones running after 
 each other. And at its foot the sea is so 
 
94 AFLOAT. 
 
 clear, that the sandy shoals or the weedy 
 bottoms can be distinguished. 
 
 Ay, verily, I do feel on certain days 
 such a horror of all that is, that I long for 
 death. The invariable monotoay of land- 
 scapes, faces and thoughts, become an 
 intensely acute suffering. The meanness 
 of the universe astonishes and revolts me, 
 the littleness of all things fills me with 
 disgust, and I am overwhelmed by the 
 platitude of human beings. 
 
 At other times, on the contrary, I enjoy 
 everything as an animal does. If my 
 spirit, restless, agitated, hypertrophied by 
 work, bounds onward to hopes that are not 
 those of our race, and then after having 
 realised that all is vanity, falls back into a 
 contempt for all that is, my animal body at 
 least, is enraptured with all the intoxication 
 of life. Like the birds, I love the sky, 
 like the prowling wolf, the forests ; I 
 delight in rocky heights, like a chamois ; 
 the thick grass, I love to roll in and gallop 
 over like ahorse, and, like a fish, I revel in 
 
AFLOAT. 95 
 
 the clear waters. I feel thrilling within 
 me, the sensations of all the different 
 species of animals, of all their instincts, 
 of all the confused longings of inferior 
 creatures. I love the earth as they do, 
 not as other men do ; I love it without 
 admiring it, without poetry, without 
 exultation ; I love with a deep and animal 
 attachment, contemptible yet holy, all 
 that lives, all that grows, all we see ; for 
 all this, leaving my spirit calm, excites 
 only my eyes and my heart : the days, 
 the nights, the rivers, the seas, the storms, 
 the woods, the hues of dawn, the glance 
 of woman, her very touch. 
 
 The gentle ripple of water on the sandj' 
 shore, or on the rocky granite affects and 
 moves me, and the joy that fills me as I 
 feel myself driven forward by the wind, 
 and carried along by the waves, proceeds 
 from the abandonment of myself, to the 
 brutal and natural forces of creation, from 
 my return to a primitive state. 
 
 When the weather is beautiful as it is 
 
96 AFLOAT. 
 
 to-day, I feel in my veins the blood of the 
 lascivious and vagabond fauns of olden 
 times. I am no longer the brother of 
 mankind, but the brother of all creatures 
 and all nature ! 
 
 The sun mounts above the horizon. 
 The breeze dies away as it did the day 
 before yesterday ; but the west wind 
 foretold by Bernard, does not rise any 
 more than the easterly one, announced by 
 Eaymond. 
 
 Till ten o'clock, we float motionless like 
 a wreck, then a little breath from the open 
 sea starts us on our road, falls, rises again, 
 seems to mock us, glancing across the sail, 
 promising at each moment a breeze that 
 does not come. It is nothing, a mere 
 whiff, a flutter of a fan ; nevertheless it is 
 sufficient to prevent our being stationary. 
 The porpoises, those clowns of the sea, 
 play about around us, dashing out of the 
 water with rapid bounds, as though they 
 would take flight, striking into the air 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 97 
 
 like lightning, then plunging and nsin<: 
 
 again further off. 
 
 At ahout one o'clock, as we lay broad- 
 side on to Agay, the breeze completely 
 
 -T^- '"' 
 
 gave way, and 1 realized that I should 
 sleep out at sea if I did not man the boat 
 to tow the yacht and take shelter in the 
 bay. 
 
 I therefore made the two men get into 
 the dingy, and when at a distance of some 
 thirty yards or so, they began to tug mc 
 
98 
 
 AFLOAT. 
 
 along. A fierce sun was glaring on tiro 
 water, and its burning rays beat down 
 upon the decks. 
 
 The two sailors rowed in slow and re- 
 
 
 gular fashion like worn-out cranks, which, 
 though working with difficulty, cease- 
 lessly continue their mechanical labour. 
 
 The bay of Agay forms a very pretty 
 dock, well sheltered and closed on one side 
 by upright, red rocks, overlooked by the 
 
AFLOAT. 99 
 
 semaphore on the summit of the moun- 
 tain, and prolonged towards the open sea 
 by the He d'Or, so called on account of its 
 colour ; wliile on the other side is a line of 
 sunken rocks, and a small headland level 
 with the surface of the water, bearing a 
 lighthouse to mark the entry. 
 
 At the further end is an inn, ready for 
 the entertainment of skippers of vessels, 
 that have taken refuge there from stress of 
 weather, or for fishermen during the sum- 
 mer ; and a railway station where trains 
 only stop twice a day, and where no one 
 ever gets out ; and a pretty river that 
 winds away into the Esterel, as far as the 
 valley named Malin-fermet, which is as full 
 of pink oleanders as any African ravine. 
 
 No road leads from the interior to the 
 delicious bay. A pathway only, takes you 
 to Saint-Raphael, passing through the 
 porphyry quarries of Drammont ; but no 
 vehicle could use it. We are therefore 
 quite lost in the mountain. 
 
 I resolved to wander about till night- 
 
100 Ab'LOAT. 
 
 fall, in the paths bordered by cistus and 
 lentisk. The scent of wild plants, strong 
 and perfumed, filled the air, mingling 
 with the powerful resinous breath of the 
 forest, which seemed to pant in the heat. 
 
 After an hour's walk, I was deep among 
 the pine trees, scattered sparsely on a 
 gentle declivity of the mountain. The 
 purple granite, — the bones of the earth, — 
 seemed reddened by the sun, and I wended 
 my way slowly, happy as the lizards must 
 be on burning hot stones ; when I per- 
 ceived on the summit of the mountain, 
 coming towards me, without seeing me, two 
 lovers lost in the depths of their love dream. 
 
 'Twas a charmingly pretty sight; on 
 they came, with arms entwined, moving 
 with absent footsteps through the alter- 
 nating sun and shade, that flecked the 
 sloping banks. 
 
 She appeared to me very graceful and 
 very simple, with a grey travelling dress 
 and a bold coquettish felt hat. I hardly 
 saw him, I only noticed that he seemed 
 
lOa AFLOAT. 
 
 well bred. I had seated myself behind 
 the trunk of a pine tree, to watch them 
 pass by. They did not pejceive me, and 
 continued their descent with interlocked 
 arms, silently, and without a word, so 
 much did their love absorb them. 
 
 When I lost sight of them, I felt as 
 though a sadness had fallen on my heart. 
 A felicity that I knew not, had 'passed near 
 me, and I guessed that it was the best of 
 all. And I returned towards the bay of 
 Agay, too dejected now to continue my 
 stroll. 
 
 Until the evening, I lay stretched out on 
 the grass, by the side of the river, and at 
 about seven o'clock I went into the inn for 
 dinner. 
 
 My men had warned the innkeeper, and 
 he was expecting me. My table was set 
 in the white- washed room, by the side of 
 another at which were already settled my 
 love-stricken couple, face to face, with eyes 
 fondly gazing upon each other. 
 
 I felt ashamed at disturbing them, as 
 
AFLOAT. 103 
 
 though I were committing a mean and 
 unbecoming action. 
 
 They stared at me for a few seconds, 
 and then resumed their low-toned con- 
 versation. 
 
 The innkeeper who had known me for a 
 long time took a seat near mine. He talked 
 of wild boars, and rabbits, the fine weather, 
 the mistral, about an Italian captain who 
 had slept at the inn a few nights before, 
 and then, to flatter my vanity, he praised 
 my yacht, the black hull of which I 
 could see through the window, with its 
 tall mast, and my red and white pennant 
 floating aloft. 
 
 My neighbours, who had eaten very 
 rapidly, soon left. As for me, I dawdled 
 about looking at the slight crescent of the 
 moon, shedding its soft rays over the little 
 roadstead. At last I saw my dingy 
 nearing the shore, scattering lines of silver 
 as it advanced through the pale motionless 
 light that fell upon the water. 
 
 When I went down to my boat, I saw 
 
101 AFLOAT. 
 
 the lovers standing on the beach gazing at 
 the sea. 
 
 And as I went off to the quick sound of 
 the oars, I still distinguished their outlines 
 on the shore, their shadows erect side by 
 side. They seemed to fill the bay, the night, 
 the heavens, with a symbolic grandeur, 
 so penetrating was the atmosphere of 
 love they diffused around them, so wide- 
 spread over the far horizon. 
 
 And when I had reached my yacht, I 
 remained seated a long while on deck, 
 overcome with sadness without knowing 
 wherefore, filled with regrets without 
 knowing why, unwilling even to decide 
 on going down to my cabin, as though I 
 would fain absorb a little more of the 
 tenderness they had diffused around them. 
 Suddenly, one of the windows of the inn 
 was lit up, and I saw their profiles on the 
 bright background. Tben my loneliness 
 overpowered me, and in the balminess of 
 the springlike night, at the soft sound of 
 the waves on the sand, under the delicate 
 

 N'^T' 
 
 ' 1> '1 ■ 
 
 H 2 
 
106 AFLOAT. 
 
 crescent sHedding its rays over the sea, 
 I felt iu my heart such an intense desire 
 of love, that I_ was near crying out in my 
 envious distress. 
 
 Then, all at once, I became ashamed of 
 this weakness, and, unwilling to admit to 
 myself that I was a man like another, 
 I accused the moonshine of disturbing my 
 reason. 
 
 I have moreover always believed, that 
 the moon exercises a mysterious influence 
 on the human brain. 
 
 It fills poets with vagaries, rendering 
 them delightful or ridiculous, and produces 
 on lovers' affections, the effect of Euhm- 
 korff's pUe on electric currents. The man 
 who loves in a normal manner under 
 the sunlight, adores with frenzy under 
 the moon. 
 
 A youthful and charming woman main- 
 tained to me one day, I forget on what 
 occasion, that moon strokes are infinitely 
 more dangerous than sun strokes. They 
 are caught, she said, unawares, out walking 
 
AFLOAT. 107 
 
 perchance on a beautiful night, and they 
 are incurable ; you remain mad ; not 
 raving mad, not mad enough to be shut up, 
 but mad of a special madness, gentle, in- 
 curable ; and you no longer think on any 
 subject like other men. 
 
 1 have certainly been moon-struck to- 
 night, for I feel strangely unreasonable 
 and light headed ; and the little crescent 
 in its downward course towards the sea 
 affects me, melts me to tears, and rends my 
 heart. 
 
 "Wherein lies the power of seduction 
 of this moon, aged dead planet that it is, 
 rambling through the heavens with its 
 yellow face and sad ghostly light, that it 
 should thus agitate us, we whom even our 
 vagabond thoughts disturb ? 
 
 Do we love it because it is dead? as 
 the poet Haraucourt says : 
 
 " Puis oe flit I'age blond des tiddeurs et des vents. 
 La lune se peupla de murmures vivants : 
 EUe eiit des mers saus fond et des fleuves sans 
 
 nombre, 
 Des troupeaux, des citt's, des pleurs, des oris joyeiix, 
 
108 AFLOAT. 
 
 EUe eut I'amour ; elle eut ses arts, ses lois, ses dieux, 
 Et lentement rentra dans I'ombre." * 
 
 Do we love it because the poets, to whom 
 we owe the eternal illusion that surrounds 
 us in this world, have dimmed our sight 
 by all the images they have seen in its 
 pallid rays, have taught our over- excited 
 sensibility to feel in a thousand different 
 ways, the soft and monotonous effects it 
 sheds over the world ? 
 
 When it rises behind the trees, when it 
 pours forth its shimmering light on the 
 flowing river, when it descends through the 
 boughs on to the sand of the shaded alleys, 
 when it mounts solitary in the black and 
 empty sky, when it dips towards the sea, 
 stretching out on the undulating surface of 
 the waters a vast jJathway of light, are we 
 not haunted by all the charming verses 
 with which it has inspired great dreamers ? 
 
 * Then it was the fair age of balminess and breezes. 
 The moon became peopled with living whispers ; 
 She had bottomless seas and numberless rivers, 
 Flocks, cities, tears, and cries full of joy, 
 She bad love ; she had her arts, her laws, her gods. 
 Then slowly sank back into dai'kness. 
 
AFI.OAT. 
 
 109 
 
 If we wandei' forth Ly niglit ia joyous 
 spirits, and if wo see its smooth circle, 
 round like a yellow eye watching us. 
 
 perched just over a roof, Musset's im- 
 mortal ballad is recalled to our miud. 
 
 And is it not he, the mocking poet, 
 who immediately presents it to us through 
 his eyes ? 
 
 O'otiiit dans la iiuit bnme, 
 Sur le cloclicr jauiii 
 
 La lune 
 Comme uia point suv iiii I. 
 
110 
 
 AFLOAT. 
 
 Lune, quel esprit sombre 
 Promeiie an bout d'un til, 
 
 Daus rombve, 
 Ta face ou ton profil ? " * 
 
 If we walk on some evening Ml of sad- 
 ness, on tlie beach by tlie side of the ocean 
 
 illuminated by its rays, do we not, in spite 
 of ourselves, at once recite the two grand 
 and melancholy lines : 
 
 * 'Tw"aJ3 in the dusky niglit, 
 Above the yelloweil steeple, 
 
 Stood the moon 
 Like a dot on an L 
 
 By what sombre spirit 
 Is thy face or profile, 
 Swung as from a thread 
 Through the shadows of the sky ? 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 Ill 
 
 "Seulo au-dessus cles mers, la lime voyagcant, 
 Laissc dans Ics flots noirs tomber ses pleurs 
 d'argent. " * 
 
 If we awake, to find our bed lighted up 
 by a long beana coming in at the window, 
 
 do we not feel tit once as though the white 
 figure evoked by Catulle Monde's were 
 descending ujjon us : 
 
 * Alone above the seas, the wandering moon 
 Lets fall her silver tears in the black billows. 
 
112 AFLOAT. 
 
 " Elle venait, avec xm lis dans cliaque main, 
 La pente d'lm rayon lui servant de chemin. " * 
 
 If, in some evening ■walk in the country, 
 we suddenly hear the long sinister howl of 
 a farm dog, are we not forcibly struck by 
 the recollection of the admirable poem of 
 Leconte de Lisle, ks Hurleurs ? 
 
 " Seiile, la lime pftle, en ^cartant la nue, 
 Comme ime morne lampe, oscillait tristement. 
 Monde muet, marqne d'un sigiie de colere, 
 Dfebris d'un globe nicrt au liasard disperse, 
 Elle laissait tomber de son orbe glace 
 Un reflet sepulcral sur I'ocean polaire. " t 
 
 At the evening trysting place, one 
 saunters slowly through the leafy path, 
 with arm encircling the beloved one, 
 pressing her hand, and kissing her brow. 
 She is pei'haps a little tired, a little moved, 
 and walks with lagging step. 
 
 " With a lily in cacli hand slie came, 
 The slanting beam her pathway. 
 
 + Alone the pale moon parting the clouds 
 Like a gloomy lamp, sadly oscillates 
 Dumb world, marked by a sign of anger, 
 Fragment of a dead globe dispersed at haphazard, 
 She let fall from her frozen orb 
 A sepulchral reflection on a polar ocean. 
 
114 AFLOAT. 
 
 A bench appears in sight, under the 
 leaves bathed by the soft light, as by a 
 calm shower. 
 
 In our hearts and minds, like an exquisite 
 love-song, the two charming lines start up : 
 
 " Et reveiUer, pour s'asseoir k sa place, 
 Le clair de luue endorrai sur le banc ! " * 
 
 Can one see the lessening crescent, as on 
 this evening, cast its fair profile on the vast 
 sky spangled with stars, without thinking 
 of the end of that masterpiece of Yictor 
 Hugo's, which is called " Boaz Endormi : " 
 
 " Et Rutli se demandait, 
 Immobile, ouvrant Foeil b, demi sous ses voiles, 
 Quel Dicu, quel moissonneur de Teteniel ete 
 Avait, en s'en allant, negligemmeut jete 
 Cette faucille d'or dans le champ des Atoiles." + 
 
 And who has better described the 
 
 * And, to take her place, one awakens 
 A ray of moonlight asleep on the bench. 
 
 t And Euth, motionless, 
 Asked herself, as she opened her haU-closed eye under 
 
 her veil, 
 What God, what reaper of the eternal summer. 
 Had negligently thrown as he passed by 
 This golden sickle in the starry field. 
 
AFLOAT. 115 
 
 mooD, courteous and tender to all lovers, 
 than Hugo : 
 
 " La]nuit vint, tout se tut ; les flambeaux s'eteigni- 
 rent ; 
 Dans les bois assombris, les sources se plaignireut. 
 Le rossignol, cache dans son nid tenebreux, 
 Chanta comme un poMe et comme un amoureux. 
 Chacun se dispersa lous les profonds feuiUages, 
 Les folles, en riant, eutrainereut les sages ; 
 L'amante s'en alia dans I'ombre avec I'amant ; 
 Et troubles comiue ou Test en songe, vaguement, 
 lis seutaient par degres se mSler h leur S,me, 
 A leurs diseours secrets, b, leur regards de flamme, 
 A leurs coeurs, k leurs sens, a leur molle raison, 
 Le clair de lune bleu qui baignait I'horizon." * 
 
 And I remember also the admirable 
 prayer to the moon, which is the opening 
 scene, of the eleventh book of Apuleius' 
 Golden Ass. 
 
 * Night fell, all was hushed ; the torches died out 
 Uuler the darkening woods, the sj^rings Ij.m;a, 
 The nightingale, hidden in its shady nest, 
 Sang lilce a poet and lilie a lovei'. 
 In the depths of the dark foliage all dispersed, 
 The madcaps laughing carjiet otf the wise. 
 The fair one disappeared in the gloom with her lover 
 And with the vague trouble of some dream 
 They felt by degrees intermingled with their souls, 
 \Yith their secret thoughts, with their glances of flame, 
 With their hearts, their senses, with their yielding 
 
 reason 
 •The blue moonlight that bathed the vast horizon 
 
116 AFLOAT. 
 
 Still all the songs of mankind are not 
 enough to account for the sentimental sad- 
 ness with which this poor planet inspires us. 
 
 We pity the moon, in spite of ourselves, 
 without knowing the reason, and for this 
 it is we love it. 
 
 Even the tender feeling we bestow on it is 
 mingled with compassion ; we pity it like 
 an old maid, for we vaguely feel, the poets 
 notwithstanding, that it is not a corpse 
 but a cold virgin. 
 
 Planets, like woman, need a husband, 
 and the poor moon, disdained by the sun, 
 is nothing more nor less than an old maid, 
 as we mortals say. 
 
 And it is for this reason that, with its 
 timid light, it fills us with hopes that 
 cannot be realized, and desires that cannot 
 be fulfilled. 
 
 All that wc vainly and dimly wait and 
 hope for upon this earth, works in our 
 hearts like mysterious but powerless sap, 
 beneath the pale rays of the moon. When 
 we raise our eyes to it, we quiver with 
 
AFLOAT. 117 
 
 inexpressible tenderness and are thrilled 
 by impossible dreams ! 
 
 The narrow crescent, a mere thread of 
 gold, now dipped its keen gleaming point 
 in the water, and gradually plunged gently 
 
 ^^^^T^r^^-^ 1 
 
 and slowly till the other point, so delicate 
 that I could not detect the moment of its 
 vanishing, had also disappeared. 
 
 Then, I raised my eyes towards the inn. 
 The lighted window was closed. A dull 
 melancholy crushed my heart, and I went 
 below. 
 

 , ) iiiiii]^ii l ^.j»-ypgafc>f^>a »*^ 
 1 P»1— -j 
 
 ■WK-J'^'lJhraiZ 
 
 <sF^ . -T> 
 
 No sooner had I lain down than I felt 
 sleep was impossible, and I remained 
 lying on my back with ni)' eyes closed, my 
 thoughts on the alert, and all my nerves 
 quivering. Not a motion, not a sound, 
 near or far, nothing but the breathing of 
 the two sailors through the thin bulkhead, 
 could be heard. 
 
AFLOAT. 119 
 
 Suddenly, something grated. What 
 was it ? I know not. Some Hock in the 
 rigging, no doubt ; but the tone — tender, 
 plaintive, and mournful — of the sound sent 
 a thrill through me ; then nothing more. 
 An infinite silence seemed to spread from 
 the earth to the stars ; nothing more — not 
 a breath, not a shiver on the water, not a 
 vibration of the yacht, nothing ; and then 
 again the slight and unrecognisable moan 
 recommenced. It seemed to me as I 
 listened, as though a jagged blade were 
 sawing at my heart. Just as certain 
 noises, certain notes, certain voices harrow 
 us, and in one second pour into our soul 
 all it can contain of sorrow, desperation, 
 and anguish. I listened expectantly, and 
 heard it again, the identical sound which 
 now seemed to emanate from my own 
 self, — to be wrung out of my nerves, — or 
 rather, to resound in a secret, deep, and 
 desolate cry. Yes, it was a cruel though 
 familiar voice, a voice expected, and full 
 of desperation. It passed over me with 
 
120 AFLOAT. 
 
 its weird and feeble tones as an uncanny 
 thing, sowing broadcast the appalling 
 terrors of delirium, for it had power to 
 awake the horrible distress which lies 
 slumbering, in the inmost heart of every 
 living man. "What was it ? It was the 
 voice ringing with reproaches which tor- 
 tures our soul, clamouring ceaselessly, 
 obscure, painful, harassing ; a voice, un- 
 appeasable and mysterious, which will not 
 be ignored ; ferocious in its reproaches for 
 what we have done, as well as what we 
 have left undone ; the voice of remorse 
 and useless regrets for the days gone by, 
 and the women unloved ; for the joys that 
 were vain, and the hopes that are dead ; 
 the voice of the past, of all that has dis- 
 appointed us, has fled and disappeared for 
 ever, of what we have not, nor shall ever 
 attain ; the small shrill voice which ever 
 proclaims the failure of our life, the use- 
 lessness of our efforts, the impotence of 
 our minds, and the weakness of our flesh. 
 It spoke to me in that short whisper, 
 
AFLOAT. 121 
 
 recommencing after each dismal silence of 
 the dark night, it spoke of all I would 
 have loved, of all that I had vaguely 
 desired, expected, dreamt of; all that I 
 ■would have longed to see, to understand, 
 to know, to taste, all that my insatiable, 
 poor, and weak spirit had touched upon 
 with a useless hope, all that, towards 
 which it had been tempted to soar, with- 
 out being able to tear asunder, the chains 
 of ignorance that held it. 
 
 Ah ! I have coveted all, and delighted 
 in nothing. I should have required the 
 vitality of a whole race, the varying 
 intelligence, all the faculties, all the 
 powers scattered among all beings, and 
 thousands of existences in reserve; for I 
 bear within myself every desire and every 
 curiosity, and I am compelled to see all, 
 and grasp nothing. 
 
 From whence, therefore, arises this 
 anguish at living, since to the generality 
 of men it only brings satisfaction ? 
 Wherefore this unknown torture, which 
 
 I 2 
 
122 AFLOAT. 
 
 preys upon me ? Why should I not know 
 the reality of pleasure, expectation, and 
 possession ? 
 
 It is because I carry within me that 
 second sight, which is at the same time the 
 power and despair of writers. I write be- 
 cause I understand and suffer from all that 
 is, because I know it too well, and above 
 all, because without being able to enjoy 
 it, I contemplate it inwardly in the mirror 
 of my thoughts. 
 
 Let no one envy, but rather pity us, for 
 in the following manner does the literary 
 man, differ from his fellow-creatures. 
 
 For him no simple feeling any longer 
 exists. All he sees, his joys, his plea- 
 sures, his suffering, his despair, all instan- 
 taneously become subjects of observation. 
 In spite of all, in spite of himself, he 
 analyses everything, hearts, faces, ges- 
 tures, intonations. As soon as he has seen, 
 whatever it may be, he must know the 
 wherefore. He has not a spark of en- 
 thusiasm, not a cry, not a kiss that is spon- 
 
AFLOAT. 123 
 
 taneous, not one instantaneous action done 
 merely because it must be done, uncon- 
 sciously, without reflection, without under- 
 standing, without noting it down afterwards. 
 If he suffers, he notes down his suffer- 
 ing, and classes it in his memory ; he says 
 to himself as he leaves the cemetery, where 
 he has left the being he has loved most in 
 the world : " It is curious what I felt ; it 
 was like an intoxication of pain, etc. . . ." 
 And then he recalls all the details, the 
 attitude of those near him, the discordant 
 gestures of feigned grief, the insincere 
 faces, and a thousand little insignificant 
 trifles noted by the artistic observation, — 
 the sign of the cross made by an old 
 woman leading a child, a ray of light 
 through a window, a dog that crosssed the 
 faneral procession, the effect of the hearse 
 under the tall yew trees in the cemetery, 
 the face of the undertaker and its muscular 
 contractions, the strain of the four men 
 who lowered the cof&n into the grave, a 
 thousand things in fact that a poor fellow 
 
X24 AFLOAT. 
 
 suffering witli all his heart, soul and 
 strength, would never have noticed. 
 
 He has seen all, noticed all, remem- 
 bered all; in spite of himself, because he is 
 above all a literary man, and his intellect 
 
 is constructed in such a manner, that the 
 reverberation in him is much more vivid, 
 more natural, so to speak, than the first 
 shock, the echo more sonorous, than the 
 original sound. 
 
 He seems to have two souls, one that 
 notes, explains, comments each seasation 
 of its neighbour, the natural soul common 
 
AFLOAT. 125 
 
 to all men, and lie lives condemned to be 
 the mere reflection of himself or others ; 
 condemned to look on, and see himself feel, 
 act, love, think, suffer, and never be free 
 like the rest of mankind ; simply, genially, 
 frankly, without analysing his own soul 
 after every joy, and every agony. 
 
 If he converses, his words often wear 
 the air of slander, and that only because 
 his thoughts are clear-sighted, and that he 
 cannot refrain from investigating the secret 
 springs, which regulate the feelings and 
 actions of others. 
 
 If he writes, he cannot refrain from 
 throwing into his books aU that he has 
 seen, all he has gathered, all he knows ; 
 he makes no exception in favour of friends 
 or relations, but he pitilessly lays bare the 
 hearts of those he loves or has loved, with 
 a cruel impartiality, — exaggerating even 
 to make the effect more powerful, — wholly 
 absorbed by his work, and in no wise by his 
 affections. 
 
 And if he loves, if he loves a woman, he 
 
126 AFLOAT. 
 
 will dissect her, as he would a corpse m a 
 hospital. All she says, all she does, is 
 instantly weighed in the delicate scales of 
 observation, which he carries within him, 
 and is docketed according to its documen- 
 tary importance. If in an unpremeditated 
 impulse she throws herself on his neck, 
 he will judge the action, considering its 
 opportuneness, its correctness, its dramatic 
 power, and will tacitly condemn it, if he 
 feels it artificial, or badly done. 
 
 Actor and spectator of himself and of 
 others, he is never solely an actor, like the 
 good folk who take life easily. Every- 
 thing around him becomes transparent, 
 hearts, deeds, secret intentions; and he 
 suffers from a strange malady, a kind of 
 duality of the mind, that makes of him a 
 terribly vibrating and complicated piece of 
 machinery, fatiguing even to himself. 
 
 Owing to his peculiarly morbid sen- 
 sibility, he is no happier than one flayed 
 alive, to whom nearly every sensation 
 becomes a torture. 
 
AFLOAT. 1217 
 
 I can remember dark days, in which my 
 heart was so lacerated by things I had 
 only caught sight of for a second, that the 
 memory of those visions, has remained 
 within me like grievous wounds. 
 
 One morning, in the Avenue de I'Opera, 
 in the midst of a stirring and joyous crowd, 
 intoxicated with the sunlight of the month 
 of May, I suddenly caught sight of a 
 creature, for whom one could find no 
 name, an old woman bent double, dressed 
 in tatters that had been garments, with 
 an old straw bonnet stripped of its former 
 ornaments, the ribbons and flowers having 
 disappeared in times immemorial. And 
 she went bj^, dragging her feet along so 
 painfully, that I felt in my heart, as much 
 as she did, more than she could, the aching 
 pain of each of her steps. Two sticks 
 supported her. She passed along without 
 seeing anyone, indifferent to all — to the 
 noise, the crowd, the carriages and the 
 sun ! "Where was she going ? She 
 carried something in a paper parcel hang- 
 
128 AFLOAT. 
 
 ing by a string. What was it ? Bread ? 
 Yes, without a doubt. Nobody, no neigh- 
 bour had been able or willing to do this 
 errand for her, and she had undertaken 
 herself, the terrible journey from her garret 
 to the baker. At least two hours must 
 she spend, going and coming. And what 
 a mournful struggle ! Surely as fearful a 
 roadi as that of Christ on his way to 
 Calvary ! 
 
 I raised my eyes towards the roofs of 
 the tall houses. She was going up there ! 
 When would she get there ? How many 
 panting pauses on the steps, in the little 
 stairway so black and winding ? 
 
 Every one turned round to look at her ! 
 They murmured " Poor woman ! " and 
 passed on. Her skirt, her rag of a skirt 
 hardly holding to her dilapidated body, 
 draggled over the payement. And there 
 was a mind there ! A mind ? No, but 
 fearful, incessant, harassing suffering ! 
 Oh, the misery of the aged without bread, 
 the aged without hope, without children,' 
 
AFLOAT. 129 
 
 witliout money, with nothing before them 
 but death ; do we ever think of it ? Do 
 we ever think of the aged famished 
 creatures in the trarrcts ? Do we think of 
 
 the tears shed by those dimmed eyes, once 
 bright, joyous, full of happy emotion. 
 
 Another time, it was raining, I was 
 alone, shooting in the plains of Normandy, 
 plodding through the deep-ploughed fields 
 of greasy mud, that melted and slipped 
 under my feet. From time to time, a 
 
130 
 
 AFLOAT. 
 
 partridge overtaken, hiding behind a clod 
 of earth, flew off heavily through the down- 
 pour. The report of my gun, smothered 
 by the sheet of water that fell from the 
 
 skies, hardly sounded louder than the 
 crack of a whip, and the grey bird fell, its 
 feathers bespattered with blood. 
 
 I felt sad unto tears, tears as plentiful 
 as the showers that were weeping over the 
 world, and over me ; my heart was filled 
 
AFLOAT. 131 
 
 with sadness and I was overcome with 
 fatigue, so that I could hardly raise my 
 feet, heavily coated as they were with the 
 clay soil. I was returning home when I 
 saw in the middle of the fields, the doctor's 
 gig following a cross-road. 
 
 The low black carriage was passing 
 along, covered by its round hood and drawn 
 by a brown horse, like an omen of death 
 wandering through the country on this 
 sinister day. Suddenly, it pulled up, the 
 Doctor's head made its appearance, and he 
 called out : 
 
 " Here.-' 
 
 I went towards him, and he said : — 
 
 " Will you help me to nurse a case of 
 diphtheria ? I am all alone, and I want 
 someone to hold the woman, while I 
 take out the false membrane from her 
 throat;" 
 
 " I'll come with you," I replied, and I 
 got into his carriage. 
 
 He told me the following story :— 
 
 Diphtheria, terrible diphtheria that suffo- 
 
132 AFLOAT. 
 
 cates unhappy creatures, had made its 
 appearance at poor Martinet's farm. 
 
 Both the father and son, had died at the 
 heginning of the week. The mother and 
 daughter, were now in their turn dying. 
 
 A neighbour who attended to them, 
 feeling suddenly unwell, had taken flight 
 the day hefore, leaving the door wide open, 
 and abandoning the two sick people on 
 their straw pallets, alone, without anything 
 to drink, choking, suffocating, dying ; alone, 
 for the last twenty four-hours ! 
 
 The doctor had cleaned out the mother's- 
 throat and made her swallow ; but the 
 child, maddened by pain and the anguish 
 of suffocation, had buried and hidden its 
 head in the straw bedding, absolutely re- 
 fusing to allow itself to be touched. 
 
 The doctor accustomed to such scenes, 
 repeated in a sad and resigned voice : 
 
 " I cannot really spend all day with 
 these patients. By Jove, these do give one 
 a heart ache. When you think that they 
 have remained twenty-four hours without 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 133 
 
 drinking. The wind Llcw the rain in on 
 to their very beds. Ail the hens had taken 
 shelter in tho fire-place." 
 
 We had reached the farm. The doctor 
 fastened his horse, to the bough of an apple- 
 
 tree before the door, and we went in. A 
 strong smell of sickness and damp, of fever 
 and mouldiness, of hospital and cellar 
 greeted our nostrils as we entered. In this 
 grey and dismal house, tireless and without 
 sign of life, it was bitterly cold ; the swampy 
 chill of a marsh. The clock had stopped ; 
 the rain fell down into the great iire-place, 
 
134 AFLOAT. 
 
 where tbe hens had scattered the ashes, 
 and we heard in a dark corner the noise of 
 a pair of bellows, husky and rapid. It was 
 the breathing of the child. The mother, 
 stretched out in a kind of large wooden box, 
 the peasant's bed, and covered with old 
 rags and old clothes, seemed to rest quietly. 
 She slightly turned her head towards us. 
 The doctor inquired : 
 " Have you got a candle ? " 
 She answered in a low depressed tone : 
 "In the cupboard." 
 
 He took the light, and led me to the 
 further end of the room towards the Httle 
 girl's crib. 
 
 She lay panting, with emaciated cheeks, 
 glistening eyes, and tangled hair, a pitiable 
 sight. At each breath, deep hollows could 
 be seen in her thin strained neck. Stretched 
 out on her back, she convulsively clutched 
 with both hands the rags that covered her, 
 and directly she caught sight of us, she 
 turned her face away, and hid herself in 
 the straw. 
 
AFLOAT. 135 
 
 I took hold of her shoulders, and the 
 doctor, forcing her to open her mouth, 
 pulled out of her throat a long white strip 
 of skin, which seemed to me as dry as a 
 bit of leather. 
 
 Her breathing immediately became 
 easier, and she drank a little. The mother 
 raising herself on her elbow watched us. 
 She stammered out : 
 
 "Is it done?" 
 
 "Yes, it's done." 
 
 " Are we going to be left all alone ? " 
 
 A terror, a terrible terror shook her 
 voice, the terror of solitude, of loneliness, 
 of darkness, and of death that she felt so 
 near to her. 
 
 I answered : 
 
 " No, my good woman, I will stay till 
 the doctor sends you a nurse." 
 
 And turning towards the doctor, I added : 
 
 " Send old mother Mauduit ; I will pay 
 her." 
 
 " Very well, I'll send her at once." 
 
 He shook my hand, and went out ; and 
 
136 AFLOAT. 
 
 I heard his gig drive off, over the damp 
 road. 
 
 I was left alone with the two dying 
 creatures. 
 
 My dog Paf had lain down in front of 
 the empty hearth, and this reminded me 
 that a little fire would be good for us all. 
 I therefore went out to seek for wood and 
 straw, and soon a bright flame lit up the 
 whole room, and the bed of the sick child, 
 who was again gasping for breath. 
 
 I sat down, and stretched out my legs 
 in front of the fire. 
 
 The rain was beating against the 
 window panes, the wind rattled over the 
 roof. I heard the short, hard wheezing 
 breath of the two women, and the breath- 
 ing of my dog who sighed with pleasure, 
 curled up before the bright fire-place. 
 
 Life ! life ! what is it ? These two un- 
 happy creatures, who had always slept on 
 straw, eaten black bread, suflered every 
 kind of misery, were about to die ! What 
 had they done ? The father was dead, the 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 V,i1 
 
 son was dead. The poor souls had always 
 passed for honest folk, had been liked 
 and esteemed as simple and worthy 
 fellows ! 
 
 I watched my steaming boots and my 
 
 sleeping dog, and there arose within me, 
 a shameful and sensual pleasure, as I com- 
 pared my lot with that of these slaves. 
 
 The little girl seemed to choke, and 
 suddenly the grating sound became an in- 
 tolerable suffering to me, lacerating me 
 
138 AFLOAT. 
 
 like a dagger, which at each stroke pene- 
 trated my heart. 
 
 I went towards her : 
 
 "Will you drink?" I said. 
 
 She moved her head to say yes, and I 
 poured a few drops of water down her 
 throat, but she could not swallow them. 
 
 The mother, who was quieter, had turned 
 round to look at her child ; and all at once 
 a feeling of dread took possession of me, 
 a sinister dread that passed over me, like 
 the touch of some invisible monster. Where 
 was I ? I no longer knew ! Was I 
 dreaming ? What horrible nightmare was 
 this? 
 
 Is it true that such things happen? 
 that one dies like this ? And I glanced 
 into all the dark corners of the cottage, as 
 ihough I expected to see crouching in some 
 obscure angle, a hideous, unmentionable, 
 terrifying thing, the thing which lies in 
 wait for the lives of men, and kills, de- 
 vours, crushes, strangles them ; the thing 
 that delights in red blood, eyes glistening 
 
AFLOAT. 139 
 
 with, fever, wrinkles and scars, white hair 
 and decay. 
 
 The fire was dying out. I threw some more 
 wood on it, and warmed my back, shudder- 
 ing in every limb. At least, I hoped to die 
 in a good room, with doctors around my 
 bed and medicines on the tables ! And 
 these women had been all alone, for twenty- 
 four hours in this wretched hovel, without a 
 fire, stretched on the straw with the death 
 rattle in their throats ! At last I heard 
 the trot of a horse and the sounds of 
 wheels; and the nurse came in coolly, 
 pleased at finding some work to do, and 
 showing little surprise at the sight of such 
 misery. 
 
 I left her some money and fled with my 
 dog; I fled like a malefactor, running 
 away In the rain ; with the rattle of those 
 two throats still ringing In my ears, — 
 running towards my warm home where 
 my servants were awaiting me and pre- 
 paring my good dinner. 
 
 But I shall never forget that scene, nor 
 
140 AFLOAT. 
 
 many other dreadful things, that make me 
 loathe this world. 
 
 What would I not give at times, to he 
 allowed not to think, not to feel, to live like 
 a brute in a warm, clear atmosphere, in a 
 country mellow with golden light, devoid 
 of the raw, crude tones of verdure, a 
 country of the East where I might sleep 
 without weariness, and wake without care, 
 where restlessness is not anxiety, where 
 love is free from anguish, and existence is 
 not a burden. 
 
 I should choose there a large square dwell- 
 ing, like a huge box sparkling in the sun. 
 
 From the terrace, I should look upon 
 the sea and the white wing-like pointed 
 sails of the Greek and Turkish boats, as 
 they flit to and fro. The outer walls 
 have hardly any apertures. A large 
 garden with air heavily laden under the 
 overshadowing palm-trees, forms the centre 
 of this Oriental home. Sprays of clear 
 water shoot up under the trees, and fall 
 back again with a slight splash, into, a 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 141 
 
 broad marble fountain sanded with golden 
 dust. Here I should bathe oftcu, between 
 two pipes, two dreams, or two kisses. 
 
 I should have slaves, black and hand- 
 some, draped in light airy clothing, 
 
 » '' 
 
 '""y^^^:^-^^ 
 
 noiselessly running hither and thither over 
 the heavy carpets. 
 
 My walls .should be soft and rebounding, 
 with the round contours of a woman's 
 bosom, and on the divans encircling each 
 room, numberless cushions of every shape, 
 should permit of my reposing iu every 
 conceivable attitude. 
 
142 AFLOAT. 
 
 Then, wten I should tire of my delicious 
 repose, of my immobility, of my eternal 
 day-dream ; satiated with the calm enjoy- 
 ment of my own well-being, then, I would 
 order a horse to be brought to my door — a 
 horse black or white, as fleet as a gazelle. 
 
 And I would spring upon his back, and 
 in a furious gallop, quaff the tingling 
 intoxicating air. 
 
 And I would dart like an arrow, over 
 the glowing country which fiUs the eye with 
 delight, and has all the bouquet of wine. 
 
 In the calm hour of eve, I would fly in 
 a mad career, towards the vast horizon 
 dyed rose colour in the setting sun. Out 
 there, all becomes rose in the twilight : the 
 sun-burnt mountains, the sand, the gar- 
 ments of the Arabs, the dromedaries, the 
 horses, the tents ! The rose-coloured 
 flamingoes fly upwards from the marshes 
 to the rose-coloured sky, and I should 
 scream with delight, plunged in the 
 boundless infinite rosiness, of all that 
 surrounds me. 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 143 
 
 I shall be released from the sight of the 
 streets and the deafeuiug uoise of cabs on 
 the pavement, from the siglit of black- 
 coated men, seated on uncomfortable 
 
 chaii's, as they sip their absinthe and talk 
 over business. 
 
 I should ignore the state of the money 
 market, political events, changes of ministry, 
 all the useless frivolities on which vre 
 squander our short and vapid existence. 
 Why should I undergo these worries, 
 
144 AFLOAT. 
 
 these sufferings, these struggles ? I 
 would rest sheltered from the wind in my 
 bright and sumptuous dwelling. 
 
 The winged dream was floating before 
 my closed eyelids, and over my mind as it 
 sank to rest ; when I heard my men 
 awakening, lighting the boat's lantern, 
 and setting to work at some arduous and 
 lengthy task. 
 
 I called out to them : 
 
 " What on earth are you doing ? " 
 
 Raymond replied in a hesitating voice : 
 
 " We are getting some lines ready, sir ; 
 for we thought that you would like to fish, 
 if it was fine enough at sun- rise." 
 
 Agay is during the summer, the rendez- 
 vous of all the fishermen along the coast. 
 Whole families come there, sleeping at the 
 inn or in the boats, eating bouillabaisse on 
 the beach, under the shade of the pine 
 trees, the resinous bark of which crackles 
 in the sun. 
 
 I inquired : 
 
 "What o'clock is it?" 
 
AFLOAT. 145 
 
 " Three o'clock, sir." 
 
 Then, without rising, I stretched out mj- 
 arm, and opened the door that separated 
 my room from the forecastle. 
 
 The two men were squatting in the low 
 den, through which the mast passes in 
 fitting into the step ; the den was full of such 
 strange and odd things, that one might 
 take it for a haunt of thieves ; in perfect 
 order along the partitions, instruments of 
 all kinds were suspended : saws, axes, 
 marling spikes, pieces of rigging, and sauce- 
 pans ; on the floor between the two berths, 
 a pail, a stove, a barrel with its copper 
 circles, glistening under the immediate ray 
 of light from the lantern which hangs 
 between the anchor bitts, by the side of the 
 cable tiers ; and my men were busy, baiting 
 the innumerable hooks hanging all along 
 the fishing lines. 
 
 "At what hour must T get up?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Why, now, sir, at once." 
 
 Half an hour after, we all three em- 
 
146 AFLOAT. 
 
 barked on board the dingy, and left the 
 "Bel Ami" to go and spread our net at 
 the foot of the Drammont, near the 
 He d'Or. 
 
 Then when our line, some two or three 
 hundred yards long, had sunk to the 
 bottom, we baited three little deep-sea lines, 
 and having anchored the boat by sinking a 
 stone at the end of a rope, we began to 
 fish. 
 
 It was already daylight, and I could 
 distinctly see the coast of Saint-Raphael, 
 near the mouth of the Argens, and the 
 sombre mountains of the Maures, them- 
 selves running out seawards till they came 
 to an end, far away in the open sea, beyond 
 the gulf of Saint- Tropez. 
 
 Of all the southern coast, this is the spot 
 I am fondest of. I love it as though I had 
 been born there, as though I had grown 
 up in it, because it is wild and glowing, 
 and because the Parisian, the Englishman, 
 the American, the man of fashion, and the 
 adventurer have not yet poisoned it. 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 147 
 
 Suddenly the line I held in my hand 
 quivered, I started, then felt nothing, and 
 again a slight shock tightened the line 
 wound round my finger, then another one 
 more violent, shook my whole hand, and 
 
 with beating heart, I began to draw in the 
 line, gently, eagerly, striving to peer 
 through the transparent blue water, and 
 soon I perceived in the shadow of the 
 boat, a white flash describing rapid circles. 
 The fish thus seen appeared to me 
 enormous, and when on board it was no 
 bigger than a sardine. 
 
148 AFLOAT. 
 
 Then I caught many others, blue, red, 
 yellow, green, glittering, silvery, striped, 
 golden, speckled, spotted, those pretty 
 rock fish of the Mediterranean, so varied, 
 so coloured, that seem painted to please 
 the eye ; then sea-urchins covered with 
 prickles, and those hideous monsters of 
 the sea, conger-eels. 
 
 Nothing can be more amusing than the 
 uplifting of a sea fishing line. What will 
 come out of the sea? What surprise, 
 what pleasure, or what disappointment at 
 each hook pulled out of the water! 
 What a thrill runs through one when 
 from afar some large creature is perceived 
 struggling, as it rises slowly towards us I 
 
 At ten o'clock we had returned on 
 board the yacht, and the two men beaming 
 with delight, informed me that our take 
 weighed twenty-three pounds. 
 
 I was, however, doomed to . pay dearlj' 
 for my sleepless night ! A sick headache, 
 the dreadful pain that racks in a way no 
 torture could equal, shatters the head. 
 
AFLOAT. U'J 
 
 drives one crazy, bewilders the ideas, and 
 scatters the memory like dust before 
 the wind ; a sick headache had laid hold 
 of me, and I was perforce obliged to lie 
 
 down in my bunk with a bottle of ether 
 under ni)^ nostrils. 
 
 After a few minutes, I fancied I heard a 
 vague murmur which soon became a kind 
 of buzzing, and it seemed as if all the 
 interior of my body became light, as 
 light as air, as though it were melting into 
 vapour. 
 
 Then followed a numbness of spirit, 
 
150 AFLOAT. 
 
 a drowsy, comfortable state, in spite of the 
 persisting pain, wHct, however, ceased to 
 be acute. It was now a pain which one 
 could consent to bear, and not any longer 
 the terrible tearing agony, against which 
 the whole tortured body rises in protest. 
 
 Soon the strange, and delightful sensation 
 of vacuum I had in my chest, extended, 
 and reached my limbs, which in their turn 
 became light, light as though flesh and 
 bone had melted away and skin only 
 remained ; just enough skin to permit of 
 my feeling the sweetness of life, and enjoy 
 my repose. Now I found that I no longer 
 suffered. Pain had disappeared, melted, 
 vanished into air. And I heard voices, 
 four voices, two dialogues, without under- 
 standing the words. At times they were 
 but indistinct sounds, at other times a 
 word or two reached me. But I soon 
 recognized that these were but the accen- 
 tuated buzzing of my own ears. I was 
 not sleeping, I was awake, I understood, 
 I felt, I reasoned with a clearness, a 
 
AFLOAT. 151 
 
 penetration and power which were quite 
 extraordinary ; and a joyousness of spirit, 
 a strange intoxication, produced by the 
 tenfold increase of my mental faculties. 
 
 It was not a dream like that created by 
 haschich, nor the sickly visions produced 
 by opium ; it was a prodigious keenness of 
 reasoning, a new manner of seeing, of 
 judging, of estimating things and life, with 
 the absolute consciousness, the certitude 
 that this manner was the true one. 
 
 And the old simile of the Scriptures, 
 suddenly came back to my mind. It 
 seemed to me that I had tasted of the tree 
 of life, that all mystery was unveiled, so 
 strongly did I feel the power of this new, 
 strange, and irrefutable logic. And num- 
 berless arguments, reasonings, proofs, rose 
 up in my mind, to be, however, imme- 
 diately upset, by some proof, some rea- 
 soning, some argument yet more powerful. 
 My brain had become a battle-field of 
 ideas. I was a superior being, armed 
 with an invincible intelligence, and I 
 
 I, 
 
152 AFLOAT. 
 
 enjoyed prodigious happiness in the sensa- 
 tion of my power. 
 
 This state lasted a long, long time. I 
 still inhaled the fumes of my ether hottle. 
 Suddenly, I perceived that it was empty. 
 And I again began to suffer. 
 
 For ten hours I endured this torture for 
 which there is no remedy, then I fell 
 asleep, and the next day, brisk as after 
 eouyalescence, having written these few 
 pages I left for Saint-Raphael. 
 
SAtNT-RA-rnAKL, April l\th. 
 
 On our way here the weather was 
 deligh-tful, aud a light breeze carried us 
 over in six tacks. After rounding the 
 Drammond, I caught sight of the villas of 
 Saint-Raphael hidden amongst the pine- 
 trees, among the little slender pines beaten 
 all the year round, by the everlasting 
 gusts of wind from Frejus. Then I 
 passed between the Lions, pretty red rocks 
 that seemed to guard the town, and I 
 entered the port, which, choked up with 
 sand at the further end, obliges one to 
 remain some fifty yards off the quay. I 
 then went on land. 
 
 A large crowd was gathered in front of 
 the church. Some one was being mar- 
 ried. A priest was authorising in Latin 
 with, pontifical gravity, the solemn and 
 
 I, 2 
 
154 AFLOAT. 
 
 comical act which so disturbs mankind, 
 bringing with it so much mirth, suffering, 
 and tears. According to custom, the 
 families had invited all their relatives and 
 friends to the funereal service of a young 
 girl's innocence, to listen to the piously 
 •indecorous ecclesiastical admonitions, pre- 
 ceding those of the mother, and to the 
 public benediction, bestowed on that which 
 is otherwise so carefully veiled. 
 
 And the whole country-side, full of 
 broad jokes, moved by the greedy and 
 idle curiosity that draws the common herd 
 to such a scene, had come there to see how 
 the bride and bridegroom would comport 
 themselves. I mingled with the crowd, 
 and watched it. 
 
 Good heavens, how ugly men are ! For 
 at least the hundredth time, I noticed, 
 in the midst of this festive scene, that, of 
 all races, the human race is the most 
 hideous. The whole air was pervaded 
 by the odour of the people, the nause- 
 ous, sickening odour of unclean, bodies. 
 
AFLOAT. 155 
 
 greasy hair and garlic, that odour of 
 garlic, exhaled by the people of the 
 South, through nose, mouth, and skin, 
 just like roses spread abroad their per- 
 fume. 
 
 Certainly men are every day as ugly, 
 and smell as obnoxious, but our eyes 
 accustomed to the sight of them, our 
 nostrils used to their odour, fail to dis- 
 tinguish their ugliness and their emana- 
 tions, unless we have been spared for 
 some time the sight and stink of them. 
 
 Mankind is hideous ! To obtain a 
 gallery of grotesque figures, fit to raise a 
 laugh from the dead, it would be sufficient 
 to take the ten first- comers, set them in a 
 line, and photograph them with their irre- 
 gular heights, their legs, either too long or 
 too short, their bodies too fat or too thin, 
 their red or pale, bearded or smooth 
 faces, their smirking or solemn looks. 
 
 Formerly, in primeval days, the wild 
 man, the strong naked man, was certainly 
 as handsome as the l;orse, the stag or the 
 
156 AFLOAT. 
 
 lion. The exercise of his muscles, a life 
 free from restraint, the constant use of his 
 vigour and his agility, kept up iu him a 
 grace of motion, which is the first condi- 
 tion of beauty, and an elegance of form, 
 which is produced only by physical exer- 
 cise. Later on, the artistic nations, 
 enamoured of form, knew how to preserve 
 this grace and this elegance in intelligent 
 man, by the artificial means of gymnastics. 
 The care bestowed on the body, the trials 
 of strength and suppleness, the use of ice- 
 cold water and vapour baths, made the 
 Greeks true models of human beauty, and 
 they have left us their statues, to show 
 us what were the bodies of these great 
 artists. 
 
 But now, Apollo ! look at the 
 human race moving about in its festive 
 scenes. The children rickety from the 
 cradle, deformed by premature study, 
 stupefied by the school life that wears out 
 the body at fifteen years of age, and cramps 
 the mind before it is formed, reach adoles- 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 157 
 
 cence with limbs badly grown, badly 
 jointed, in wliich all normal proportions 
 have completely disappeared. 
 
 And let us contemplate the people in 
 the street, trotting along in their dirty 
 
 clothing ! As for the peasant ! Good 
 Heavens ! Let us go and watch the 
 peasant in the fields, his gnarled knotted 
 frame, lanky, twisted, bent, more hideous 
 than the barbarous types exhibited in a 
 museum of anthropology. 
 
 In comparison how splendid are those 
 men of bronze, the negroes ; in shape, if 
 
158 AFLOAT. 
 
 not in face; how elegant, both in their 
 movements and their figure, the tall lithe 
 Arabs. Moreover, I have yet another 
 reason for having a horror of crowds. 
 
 I cannot go into a theatre, nor be pre- 
 sent at any public entertainment. I at 
 once experience a curious and unbearable 
 feeling of discomfort, a horrible unnerving 
 sensation, as though I were struggling with 
 all my might, against a mysterious and 
 irresistible influence. And in truth, I 
 struggle with the spirit of the mob, which 
 strives to take possession of me. 
 
 How often have I observed that the 
 intelligence expands and grows loftier, 
 when we live alone, and that it becomes 
 meaner and lower, when we again mix 
 among other men. The contact, the 
 opinions floating in the air, all that is said, 
 all that one is compelled to listen to, to 
 hear, to answer, acts upon the mind. A 
 flow and ebb of ideas goes from head to 
 head, from house to house, from street to 
 street, from town to town, from nation to 
 
AFLOAT. 159 
 
 nation, and a level is established, an 
 average of intellect is created, by all large 
 agglomerations of individuals. 
 
 The inherent qualities of intellectual 
 initiative, of free 'will, of wise reflection 
 and even of sagacity, belonging to any 
 individual being, generally disappear the 
 moment that being is brought in contact 
 ■with a large number of other beings. 
 
 The following is a passage from a letter 
 of Lord Chesterfield to his soti (1751) 
 which sets forth with rare humility, the 
 sudden elimination of all active qualities of 
 the mind, in every large body of people : 
 
 " Lord Macclesfield, who had the 
 greatest share in forming the bill, and 
 who is one of the greatest mathematicians 
 and astronomers in Europe, spoke after- 
 wards with infinite knowledge, and all the 
 clearness that so intricate a matter would 
 admit of, but as his words, his periods, 
 and his utterance were not near so good as 
 mine, the preference was most unanimously, 
 though most unjustly, given to me. 
 
160 AFLOAT. 
 
 " This will ever be the case ; every 
 numerous assembly is mob, let the indi- 
 ■viduals who compose it be what they will. 
 Mere reason and good sense is never to be 
 talked to a mob ; their passions, their 
 sentiments, their senses and their seeming 
 interests, are alone to be applied to. 
 
 " Understanding they have collectively 
 none, &c. . ." 
 
 This deep observation of Lord Chester- 
 field's, a remark, however, that has often 
 been made, and noted with interest by 
 philosophers of the scientific school, consti- 
 tutes one of the most serious arguments 
 against representative government. 
 
 The same phenomenon, a surprising one, 
 is produced each time a large number of 
 men are gathered together. All these per- 
 sons, side by side, distinct from each other, 
 of different minds, intelligences, passions, 
 education, beliefs, and prejudices, become 
 suddenly, by the sole fact of their being 
 assembled together, a special being, 
 endowed with a new soul, a new manner 
 
AFLOAT. 161 
 
 of thinking in common, which is the 
 unanalysable resultant of the average of 
 these individual opinions. 
 
 It is a crowd, and that crowd is a 
 person, one vast collective individual, as 
 distinct from any other mob, as one 
 man is distinct from any other man. 
 
 A popular saying asserts that "the mob 
 does not reason." Now why does not 
 the mob reason, since each particular 
 individual in the crowd does reason ? 
 Why should a crowd do spontaneously, 
 what none of the units of the crowd would 
 have done ? Why has a crowd irresistible 
 impulses, ferocious wills, stupid enthu- 
 siasms that nothing can arrest, and, carried 
 away by these thoughtless impulses, why 
 does it commit acts, that none of the 
 individuals composing it would commit 
 alone ? 
 
 A stranger utters a cry, and behold ! 
 a sort of frenzy takes possession of all, and 
 all, with the same impulse, which no one 
 tries to resist, carried away by the same 
 
162 AFLOAT. 
 
 thought, which instantaneously becomes 
 common to all, notwithstanding different 
 castes, opinions, beliefs, and customs, will 
 fall upon a man, murder him, drown him, 
 without a motive, aloiost without a pretext, 
 whereas each one of them, had he been 
 alone, would have precipitated himself, at 
 the risk of his life, to save the man he is 
 now killing. 
 
 And in the evening, each one on re- 
 turning home, will ask himself what passion 
 or what madness had seized him, and 
 thrown his nature and his temperament 
 out of its ordinary groove ; how he 
 could have given way to this savage 
 impulse ? 
 
 The fact is, ho had ceased to be a man, 
 to become one of a crowd. His personal 
 will had become blended with the common 
 will, as a drop of water is blended with 
 and lost in a river. 
 
 His personality had disappeared, had 
 become an infinitesimal particle of one vast 
 and strange personality, that of the crowd. 
 
AFLOAT. 163 
 
 The panics which take hold of an army, 
 the storms of opinion which carry away an 
 entire nation, the frenzy of dervish dances, 
 are striking examples of this identical 
 phenomenon. 
 
 In short, it is not more surprising to 
 see an agglomeration of individuals make 
 one whole, than to see molecules, that 
 are placed near each other form one 
 body. 
 
 To this mysterious attraction, must 
 without douht be attributed the peculiar 
 temperament of theatre audiences, and 
 the strange difference of judgment, that 
 exists between the audience of general 
 rehearsals, and that of the audience of first 
 representations, and again between the 
 audience of a first representation, and 
 that of the succeeding performances, and 
 the change in the telling effects, from one 
 evening to another ; and the errors of 
 judgment condemning a play like Carmen, 
 which, later on, turns out an immense 
 success. 
 
164 AFLOAT. 
 
 What I say about crowds, must be 
 applied to all society, and he who would 
 carefully preserve the absolute integrity of 
 his thought, the proud independence of his 
 opinion, and look at life, humanity and 
 the universe as an impartial observer free 
 from prejudice, preconceived belief and 
 fear, must absolutely live apart from all 
 social relations ; for human stupidity is so 
 contagious, that he will ■ be unable to 
 frequent his fellow- creatures, even see 
 them, or listen to them, without being, in 
 spite of himself, influenced on all sides by 
 their conversations, their ideas, their super- 
 stitions, their traditions, their prejudices, 
 which by their customs, laws and sur- 
 prisingly hypocritical and cowardly code of 
 morality, will surely contaminate him. 
 
 Those who strive to resist these lowering 
 and incessant influences, struggle in vain 
 amidst pettj', irresistible, innumerable and 
 almost imperceptible fetters ; and through 
 sheer fatigue soon cease to fight. 
 
 But a backward movement took place 
 
166 AFLOAT. 
 
 in the crowd; the newly- married couple 
 were coming out. And immediately I 
 followed the general example, raised myself 
 on tip-toe to see,^ — and longed to see, — 
 with a stupid, low, repugnant longing, the 
 longing of the common herd. The cu- 
 riosity of my neighbours had iutoxicated 
 me ; I was one of a crowd. 
 
 To fill up the remainder of the day, I 
 decided on taking a row in my dingy up 
 the Argens. This lovely and almost 
 unknown river, separates the plains of 
 Frejus from the wild mountain range of 
 the Maures. 
 
 I took Raymond, who rowed me along 
 the side of the low beach to the mouth 
 of the river, which we found impracticable 
 and partly filled up with sand. One 
 channel only communicated with the sea ; 
 but so rapid, so full of foam, of eddies 
 and of whirlpools, that we were unable to 
 ascend it. 
 
 We were therefore obliged to drag the 
 boat to land, and carry it over the sand- 
 
AFLOAT. 167 
 
 hills to a liind of beautiful lake, formed 
 by the Argens at this spot. 
 
 In the midst of a green and marshy 
 country, of that rich green tint given by 
 trees growing out of water, the river sinks 
 down between two banks, so covered with 
 verdure, and with such high impenetrable 
 foliage, that the neighbouring mountains 
 are barely visible ; it sinks down, still 
 winding, still looking like a peaceful lake, 
 without showing or betraying that it 
 continues twisting its way through the 
 calm, lonesome and magnificent country. 
 
 As in the low Northern plains, where 
 the springs ooze out under the feet, 
 running over and vivifying the earth like 
 blood, the clear, cold blood of the soil ; so 
 here, we find again the same strange 
 sensation of exuberant nature which 
 floats over all damp countries. 
 
 Birds, with long legs dangling as they 
 fly, spring up from amongst the reeds, 
 stretching their pointed beaks heavenwards ; 
 while others, broad- winged and slow, pass 
 
168 AFLOAT. 
 
 from one bank to another with heavy 
 flight, and others, smaller and more rapid, 
 skim along the surface of the river, 
 darting forward like rebounding pebbles. 
 Innumerable turtle-doves cooing on the 
 heights, or wheeling about, fly from tree to 
 tree, and seem to exchange messages of 
 love. One feels a sensation that all around 
 this deep water, throughout all this plain, 
 up to the foot of the mountains, there is yet 
 more water ; the deceitful water of the 
 marsh, sleeping yet living; broad clear 
 sheets, in which the skies are mirrored, 
 over which the clouds flit by ; in which, 
 widely scattered, all manner of strange 
 rushes spring up ; the fertile limpid water, 
 full of rotting life and deathly fermentation ; 
 water breeding fever and miasma, at the 
 same time food and poison, spreading itself 
 out in attractive loveliness, over the 
 mysterious mass of putrefaction beneath it. 
 The atmosphere is delightful, relaxing and 
 dangerous. Over all the banks which 
 separate the vast still pools, amid all 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 the thick grasses, swarms, crawls, jumps, 
 and creeps a whole world of slimy, 
 repugnant, cold-blooded animals. I love 
 those cold, subtle animals that are irenerallv 
 
 avoided and dreaded ; for me there is 
 something sacred about them. 
 
 At the hour of sunset the marsh 
 intoxicates and excites me. After having 
 been all day a silent pond lying hushed in 
 
 M 2 
 
170 AFLOAT. 
 
 the heat, it becomes at the moment of 
 twilight, a fairy-like and enchanted country. 
 In its calm and boundless depths the skies 
 are mirrored : skies of gold, skies of blood, 
 skies of fire ; they sink in it, bathe in it, 
 float and are drowned in it. They are 
 there up above, in the immensity of the 
 firmament, and they are there below, 
 beneath us, so near and yet so completely 
 beyond our touch, in that shallow pool, 
 through which the pointed grasses push 
 their way like bristling hairs. All the 
 colour with which earth has been endowed, 
 charming, varied, and enthralling, appears 
 to us deliciously painted, admirably 
 resplendent, and infinitely shaded around 
 a single leaf of the water-lily. Every 
 shade of red, rose, yellow, blue, green, and 
 violet are there, in a little patch of water 
 which shows us the heavens, and space, 
 and dreamland, and the flight of the birds 
 as they skim across its face. And then 
 there is still something else, — I know not 
 what, — ^in the marshes beheld in the 
 
AFLOAT. 171 
 
 setting sun. I feel therein a confused 
 revelation of some unknown mystery, an 
 original breath of primeval life, which 
 is, perhaps, nothing more than the bubble 
 of gas rising from a swamp at the fall 
 of day. 
 
Saint-Tkoi'EZ, April \2tk. 
 
 We left Saint Eapliael at about eight 
 o'clock this morning, with a strong north- 
 west breeze. 
 
 The sea in the gulf, though it had no 
 waves, was white with foam, white like a 
 mass of soap-suds, for the wind, the terrible 
 wind from Frejus which blows almost 
 every morning, seemed to throw itself on 
 the water, as though it would tear it to 
 pieces, raising a rolling mass of little waves 
 of froth, scattered one moment, reformed 
 the next. 
 
AFLOAT. lis 
 
 The people at the port having assured 
 us that this squall would fall towards 
 eleven o'clock, we decided upon starting 
 with three reefs in, and the storm-jib. 
 The dingy was placed on board at the foot 
 of the mast, and the Bel-Ami seemed to 
 fly directly it left the jetty. Although it 
 carried scarcely any sail, I had never felt 
 it dash along like this. One might have 
 thought that it hardly touched the water, 
 and one would never have suspected that 
 it carried at the bottom of its large keel, 
 two and a-half yards deep, a slab of lead 
 weighing over thirty cwt., besides thirty- 
 eight cwt. of ballast in its hold, and all 
 we had on board in the shape of rigging, 
 anchors, chains, cables and furniture. 
 
 I had soon crossed the bay, at the 
 further end of which the Argens throws 
 itself into the sea ; and as soon as I was 
 under shelter of the coast the breeze com- 
 pletely fell. It is there that the splendid, 
 sombre, and wild region begins, which is 
 still called the land of the Moors. It is a 
 
174 AFLOAT. 
 
 long peninsula, composed of mountains ; 
 with a contour of coasts over sixty miles 
 long. 
 
 Saint- Tropez, situated at the entry of the 
 lovely gulf, formerly called Gulf of Grimaud, 
 is the capital of the little Saracen kingdom, 
 of which nearly every village, huilt on the 
 summit of a peak in order to secure it from 
 attack, is still full of Moorish houses with 
 arcades, narrow windows, and inner court- 
 5'ards, wherein tall palm trees have grown 
 up, and are now higher than the roofs. 
 
 If one penetrates on foot into the un- 
 known valleys of this strange group of 
 mountains, one discovers an incredible 
 country, devoid of roads, and lanes ; with- 
 out even footpaths, without hamlets, with- 
 out houses. 
 
 At intervals, after seven or eight hours' 
 walking, appears a hovel, often abandoned, 
 or sometimes inhabited by a poverty- 
 stricken family of charcoal burners. 
 
 The Monts des Maures have, it appears, 
 a system of geology peculiar to themselves. 
 
AFLOAT. 175 
 
 a matcUess flora said to be the most varied 
 ia Europe, and immense forests of pines, 
 chestnuts, and cork trees. 
 
 Some three years ago, I made an excur- 
 sion into the very heart of the country, to 
 the ruins of the Chartreuse de la Verne, 
 and have retained an ineffaceable recollec- 
 tion of it. If it is fine to-morrow I shall 
 return there. 
 
 A new road follows the sea, going from 
 Saint-Raphael to Saint- Tropez, All along 
 this magnificent avenue, opened up through 
 the forest by the side of a matchless beach, 
 new winter resorts are being started. The 
 first one planned is called Saint Aigulf 
 
 This bears a peculiar stamp. In the 
 midst of a forest of fir trees stretching 
 down to the sea, wide roads are laid out 
 in every direction. There is not a house, 
 nothing but the barely indicated plan of 
 the streets, running through the trees. 
 Here are the squares, the cross-roads and 
 the boulevards. The names are even 
 written up on metal tablets : Boulevard 
 
176 AFLOAT. 
 
 Ruysdael, Boulevard Rubens, Boulevard 
 Yan Dyck, Boulevard Claude Lorrain. 
 One wonders at 9,11 these painters' names. 
 Why indeed ? Simply because the Com- 
 pany has decided, like God before he lit the 
 sun : " This shall be an artists' resort ! " 
 
 The Company ! No one knows in the 
 rest of the world, all this word contains of 
 hopes, dangers, money gained, and money 
 lost on the Mediterranean shores ! The 
 Company ! fatal and mysterious word, deep 
 and deceitful ! 
 
 In this instance however the Company 
 seems to have realized its expectations, for 
 it has already found purchasers, and of the 
 best, amongst artists. At various places 
 one reads: "Building lot bought by M. 
 Carolus Duran ; another by M. Clairin, 
 another by Mile. Croizette, etc." Never- 
 theless—Who can tell? The Mediter- 
 ranean Companies are not in luck just 
 now.. Nothing is more ludicrous than 
 this fury of speculation, which generally 
 ends in terrible failures. Whosoever has 
 
178 AFLOAT. 
 
 gained ten thousand francs (four hundred 
 pounds) over his field, at once buj's ten 
 millions (four hundred thousand pounds) 
 worth of land at twenty sous (tenpence) 
 the metre, in order to sell it again at 
 twenty francs (sixteen shillings). Boule- 
 vards are traced, water is conveyed, gas- 
 works are prepared, and the purchaser is 
 hopefully expected. 
 
 The purchaser does not make his 
 appearance, but instead of him- — ruin. 
 
 Far off in front of me I perceive the 
 towers and the buoys, that mark the 
 breakers on both sides, at the opening of 
 the gulf of Saint-Tropez. 
 
 The first tower is called "Tour des 
 Sardinaux," and marks a regular shoal of 
 rocks, level with the top of the water, some 
 of wMch just show the tips of their brown 
 heads ; the second one has been christened 
 " Balise de la Seche a I'huile."* 
 
 We now reach the entrance of the gulf, 
 which extends back between two ridges 
 
 * Buoy of the oily scuttlc-fish ! 
 
AFLOAT. 179 
 
 of mountains and forests as far as the 
 village of Grrimaud, built at the very- 
 extremity, on a height. The ancient 
 castle of Grimaldi, a tall ruin that over- 
 looks the village, appears in the distant 
 haze like the evocation of some fairy 
 scene. 
 
 The wind has fallen. The gulf looks 
 like an immense calm lake, into which, 
 taking advantage of the last puffs of the 
 squall, we slowly make our way. 
 
 To the right of the channel, Sainte- 
 Maxime, a little white port, is mirrored in 
 the water which reflects the houses topsy- 
 turvy, and reproduces them as distinctly as 
 on shore. Opposite, Saint-Tropez appears, 
 guarded by an old fort. 
 
 At seven o'clock Bel-Ami anchored by 
 the quay, at the side of the little steamboat 
 which carries on the service with Saint- 
 Raphael. The only means of communica- 
 tion between this isolated little port, and the 
 rest of the world is by this Lion de Mer, an 
 old pleasure yacht, which runs in con- 
 
180 AFLOAT. 
 
 nection with a venerable diligence, that 
 carries the letters, and travels at night by 
 the one road which crosses the mountains. 
 This is one of those charming and 
 simple daughters of tbe sea, one of those 
 
 ;i^&:^ 
 
 nice modest little towns ; which, fed upon 
 fish and sea air, and breeder of sailors, is 
 as much a produce of the sea as any shell. 
 On the jetty, stands a bronze statue of the 
 Bailli de Suffreu. 
 
 The pervading smell is one of fish and 
 smoking tar, of brine and hulls. The 
 stones in the streets glitter like pearls, with 
 the scales of the sardines, and along the 
 walls of the port, a population of lame and 
 paralysed old sailors bask in tbe sun, on 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 181 
 
 the stone benches. From time to time 
 they talk of past voyages, and of those they 
 have known in bygone days, the grand- 
 fathers of the small boys running yonder. 
 Their hands and faces are wrinkled, tanned. 
 
 
 browned, dried by the wind, by fatigue, by 
 the spray, by the heat of the trfipics and 
 by the icy cold of Noi thorn seas, for they 
 have seen, in their roaniiugs over the 
 ocean, the ins and onts of the world, every 
 aspect of the earth and of all latitudes. 
 In front of them, ])ropped upon a stick, 
 passes and repasses the old captain of the 
 merchant service, who formerly commanded 
 the Tvois-Sceurtf, or the Dcux-Ainis, or the 
 Marie-Louise or the Jeuiie-Cleiitentinc. 
 
182 AFLOAT. 
 
 All salute him, like soldiers answering 
 the roll-call, with a litany of " Good day, 
 captain," modulated in many tones. 
 
 This is a true land of the sea, a brave 
 little town, hriny and courageous, which 
 fought in days of yore against the Saracens, 
 against the Due d'Anjou, against the 
 wild corsairs, against the Conn^tahle de 
 Bourbon, and Charles- Quint, and the Due 
 de Savoie, and the Due d'Epernon. In 
 1637, the inhabitants, fathers of these 
 peaceful citizens, without any assistance 
 repelled the Spanish fleet, and every year 
 they renew with surprising realism, the 
 representation of the attack and their 
 defence, filling the town with noisy bustle 
 and clamour, strangely recalling the great 
 popular festivities of the middle ages. 
 
 In 1813, that own likewise repulsed an 
 English flotilla, that had been sent against 
 it. 
 
 Now it is a fishing town, and the 
 produce of its fisheries supplies the greater 
 part of the coast with tunny, sardines, 
 
AFLOAT. 183 
 
 loups, rock-lobsters, and all the pretty 
 fish of this blue sea. 
 
 On setting foot on the quay after having 
 dressed myself, I heard twelve o'clock 
 strike, and I perceived two old clerks, notary 
 or lawyer's clerks, going off to their mid- 
 day meal, like two old beasts of burden, 
 unbridled for a few minutes while they eat 
 their oats at the bottom of a nosebag. 
 
 Oh, liberty ! liberty ! our sole happiness, 
 sole hope, sole dream ! Of all the miserable 
 creatures, of all classes of individuals, of 
 all orders of workers, of all the men who 
 daily fight the hard battle of life, these are 
 the most to be pitied, on these does for- 
 tune bestow the fewest of her favours. 
 
 No one believes this, — no one knows it. 
 They are powerless to complain ; they 
 cannot revolt; they remain gagged and 
 bound in their misery, the shamefaced 
 misery of quill-drivers. 
 
 They have gone through a course of 
 study, they understand law, they have 
 taken a degree, perhaps. 
 
184 AFLOAT. 
 
 How dearly I like that dedication by 
 Jules Valles : 
 
 "To all those, who, nourished upon 
 Greek and Latin, have died of starvation." 
 
 And what do they earn, these starve- 
 lings ? Eight to fifteen hundred francs, 
 (thirty-two to sixty pounds) a year ! 
 
 Clerks in gloomy chambers, or clerks in 
 office, you should read every morning 
 over the door of your fatal prison, Dante's 
 famous phrase : 
 
 " Abandon hope, all ye who enter here ! " 
 
 They are but twenty when they first 
 enter, and wiU remain till sixty or longer. 
 During this long period not an event takes 
 place ! Their whole life slips away in the 
 dark little bureau, ever the same, carpeted 
 with green portfolios. They enter young, 
 at the age of vigorous hopes ; they leave 
 in old age, when death is at hand. All 
 the harvest of recollections that we make 
 ia a life- time, the unexpected events, 
 our loves, — gentle or tragic memories, 
 our adventures, all the chances of a 
 
AFLOAT. 183 
 
 free existence, are unknown to these 
 convicts. 
 
 The days, the weeks, the months, the sea- 
 sons, the years, all are like. They begin the 
 day's work at the same hour ; at the same 
 hour, they breakfast; at the same hour, they 
 leave ; and this goes on for sixty or seventy 
 years. Four accidents only constitute 
 landmarks in their existence : marriage, 
 the birth of the first-born, and the death 
 of father, or mother. Nothing else; stop 
 though, yes, a rise in salary. They know 
 nothing of ordinary life, nothing of the 
 world ! Unknown to them are the days 
 of cheerful sunshine in the streets, and 
 idle wanderings through the fields, for 
 they are never released before the appointed 
 hour. They become voluntary prisoners 
 at eight o'clock in the morning, and at six, 
 the prison doors are opened for them, 
 when night is at hand. But, as a com- 
 pensation, they have, for a whole fortnight 
 in the year, the right, — a right indeed 
 much discussed, hardly bargained for and 
 
 N 2 
 
186 AFLOAT. 
 
 grudgingly granted, — to remain shut up in 
 their lodgings. For where can they go 
 without money ? 
 
 The builder climbs skywards ; the driver 
 prowls about the streets ; the railway 
 mechanic traverses woods, mountains, 
 plains ; moves incessantly from the walls 
 of the town, to the vast blue horizon of 
 the sea. The employe never quits his 
 bureau, his cofi&n, and in the same little 
 mirror, wherein he saw himself a young 
 fellow with fair moustache the day of his 
 arrival, he contemplates himself bald, and 
 white-bearded, on the day of his dismissal. 
 Then, all is finished, life is played out, the 
 future closed. How can he have reached 
 this point ? How can he have grown old 
 without any event having occurred, without 
 having been shaken by any of the sur- 
 prises of existence ? It is so nevertheless. 
 He must now make way for the young ! 
 for the young beginners ! 
 
 Then the unfortunate mortal steals away, 
 more wretched than before, and dies, 
 
AFLOAT. 187 
 
 almost immediately from the sudden 
 snapping of the long and obstinate habit of 
 his daily routine, the dreary routine of the 
 same movements, the same actions, the 
 same tasks at the same hours. 
 
 As I went into the hotel for breakfast, 
 an alarmingly big packet of letters and 
 papers was handed to me, and my heart sank 
 as at the prospect of some misfortune. I 
 have a fear and a hatred of letters ; they 
 are bonds. Those little squares of paper 
 bearing my name, seem to give out a 
 noise of chains, as I tear them open, — 
 of chains linking me to living creatures, I 
 have known or know. 
 
 Each one inquires, although written by 
 different hands : '' Where are you ? 
 What are you doing ? Why disappear 
 in this way, without telling us where you 
 are going ? With whom are you hiding ? " 
 Another adds : " How can you expect 
 people to care for you, if you run away in 
 this fashion from your friends ? It is 
 positively wounding to their feelings." 
 
188 AFLOAT. 
 
 "Well then, don't attach yourselves to 
 me ! Will no one endeavour to understand 
 affection, without joining thereto a notion 
 of possession and of despotism. It would 
 seem as if social ties could not exist with- 
 out entailing obligations, susceptibilities, 
 and a certain amount of subserviency. From 
 the moment one has smiled upon the 
 attentions of a stranger, this stranger has 
 a hold upon you, is inquisitive about your 
 movements, and reproaches you with 
 neglecting him. If we get as far as 
 friendship, then each one imagines himself 
 to have certain claims ; intercourse becomes 
 a duty, and the bonds which unite us seem 
 to end in slip-knots which draw tighter. 
 This affectionate solicitude, this suspicious 
 jealousy, eager to control, and to cling, on 
 the part of beings who have met casually, 
 and who fancy themselves linked together 
 because they have proved to be mutually 
 agreeable, arises solely from the harassing 
 fear of solitude, which haunts mankind 
 upon this earth. 
 
AFLOAT. 189 
 
 Each of us, feeling the void around him, 
 the unfathomable depth in which his heart 
 beats, his thoughts struggle, wanders on 
 like a madman with open arms and eager 
 lips, seeking some other being to embrace. 
 And embrace he does, to the right, to the 
 left, at haphazard, without knowing, with- 
 out looking, without understanding, that 
 he may not feel alone. He seems to say, 
 from the moment he has shaken hands : 
 " N"()w, you belong to me a little. You 
 owe me some part of yourself, of your life, 
 of your thoughts, of your time." And 
 that is why so many people believe them- 
 selves to be friends, who know nothing 
 whatever of each other, so many start off 
 hand in hand, heart to heart, without 
 having really had one good look at one 
 another. They must care for some one, 
 in order not to be alone, their affections 
 must be expended in friendship or in love, 
 but some vent, must be found for it in- 
 cessantly. And they talk of affection, 
 swear it, become enthusiastic over it, pour 
 
190 AFLOAT. 
 
 their whole heart into some unknown heart 
 found only the evening before, all their 
 soul into some chance soul with a face that 
 has pleased. And from this haste to be- 
 come united, arise all the surprises, mis- 
 takes, misunderstandings and dramas of life. 
 
 Just as we remain, lonely and alone, not- 
 withstanding all our efforts, so in like 
 manner we remain free, notwithstanding 
 all our ties. 
 
 No one, ever, belongs to another. Half 
 unconsciously we lend ourselves to the 
 comedy, — coquettish or passionate, of 
 possession, but no one really gives himself 
 — his ego — to another human being. Man, 
 exasperated by this imperious need to be 
 the master of some one, instituted tyranny, 
 slavery and marriage. He can kill, torture, 
 imprison, but the human will inevitably 
 escapes him, even when it has for a few 
 moments consented to submission. 
 
 Do mothers even possess their children ? 
 Does not the tiny being but just entered 
 into the world, set to work to cry for what 
 
AFLOAT. 191 
 
 he wants, to announce his separate exist- 
 ence, and proclaim his independence ? 
 
 Does a woman ever really helong to 
 you ? Do you know what she thinks, 
 whether even she really adores you ? You 
 kiss her sweet hody (waste your whole soul 
 on her perfect lips) : a word from your 
 mouth or from hers — one single word — is 
 enough to put between you, a gulf of im- 
 placable hatred ! 
 
 All sentiments of affection lose their 
 charm, when they become authoritative. 
 Because it gives me pleasure to see and 
 talk with some one, does it follow that I 
 should be permitted to know what he does, 
 and what he likes ? The bustle of towns, 
 both great and small, of all classes of 
 society, the mischievous, envious, evil- 
 speaking, calumniating curiosity, the inces- 
 sant watchfulness of the affections and con- 
 duct of others, of their gossip and their 
 scandals, are they not all born of that pre- 
 tension we have, to control the conduct of 
 others, as if we all belonged to each other 
 
192 AFLOAT. 
 
 in varying degrees ? And we do in 
 fact imagine that we have some rights over 
 them, and on their life, for we would fain 
 model it upon our own ; on their thoughts, 
 for we expect them to be of the same style 
 as our own ; on their opinions, in which 
 we will not tolerate any difference from 
 ours ; on their reputation, for we expect it 
 to conform to our principles ; on their habits, 
 for we swell with indignation, when they are 
 not according to our notions of morality. 
 
 I was breakfasting at the end of a long 
 table, in the hotel Bailli de Suffren, and 
 still occupied with the perusal of my letters 
 and papers, when I was disturbed by the 
 noisy conversation of some half-dozen men, 
 seated at the other end. 
 
 They were commercial travellers. They 
 talked on every subject with assurance, 
 with contempt, in an airy, chaiRng authori- 
 tative manner, and they gave me the 
 clearest, the sharpest feeling of what con- 
 stitutes the true French spirit ; that is to 
 say, the average of the intelligence, logic. 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 193 
 
 sense and wit of France. One of them, a 
 great fellow with a shock of red hair wore 
 the military medal, and also one for saving 
 life, — a fine fellow. Another, a fat little 
 roundabout, made puns without ceasing 
 
 and laughed till his sides ached at his own 
 jokes, before he would leave time to the 
 others to understand his fun. Another 
 man with close- cut hair, was re- organizing 
 the army and the administration of justice, 
 reforming the laws and the constitution, 
 sketching out an ideal Republic to suit his 
 own views, as a traveller in the wine 
 
194 AFLOAT. 
 
 trade. Two others, side by side, were 
 anmsing each other thoroughly with the 
 narrative of their bonnes fortunes ; adven- 
 tures in hack parlours of shops, and con- 
 quests of maids-of-all-work. 
 
 And in them I saw France personified, 
 the witty, versatile, brave and gaUant 
 France of tradition. 
 
 These men were types of the race, 
 vulgar types, it is true, but which have but 
 to be poetized a little, to find in them the 
 Frenchman, such as history — that lying and 
 imaginative old dame — shows him to us. 
 
 And it is really an amusing race, by 
 reason of certain very special qualities, 
 which one finds absolutely nowhere else. 
 
 First and foremost it is their versatility, 
 which so agreeably diversifies both their 
 customs, and their institutions. It is this, 
 which makes the history of their country 
 resemble some surprising tale of adventure 
 in a feidlleton, of which the pages " to be 
 continued in the next number," are full 
 of the most unexpected events, tragic. 
 
AFLOAT. 195 
 
 comic, terrible, grotesque. One may be 
 angry or indignant over it, according to 
 one's "way of tbinking, but it is none the less 
 certain that no history in the "VA'orld is more 
 amusing, and more stirring than theirs. 
 
 From the pure art point of view — and 
 why should one not admit this special, and 
 disinterested point of view, in politics as 
 well as in literature ? — it remains without 
 a rival. What can be more curious, and 
 more surprising, than the events which have 
 been accomphshed in the last century ? 
 
 What will to-morrow bring forth ? This 
 expectation of the unforeseen is, after all, 
 very charming. Everything is possible in 
 France, even the most wildly improbable 
 drolleries, and the most tragic adventures. 
 
 What could surprise them ? When a 
 country has produced a Joan of Arc, and a 
 Napoleon, it may well be considered 
 miraculous ground. 
 
 And then the French love women : they 
 love them well, with passion and with airy 
 grace, and with respect. 
 
196 AFLOAT. 
 
 Their gallantry cannot be compared to 
 anj'thing in any other country. 
 
 He who has preserved in his heart, the 
 flame of gallantry which burned in the last 
 centuries, surrounds women with a tender- 
 ness at once profound, gentle, sensitive 
 and vigilant. He loves everything that 
 belongs to them ; everything that comes 
 from them, everything that they are ; 
 everything they do. He loves their 
 toilette, their knick-knacks, their adorn- 
 ments, their artifices, their ndivetds, their 
 little perfidies, their lies and their dainty 
 ways. He loves them all, rich as well as 
 poor, the young and even the old, the 
 dark, the fair, the fat, the thin. He feels 
 himself at his ease with them, and amongst 
 them. There he could remain inde- 
 finitely, without fatigue, without ennui, 
 happy in the mere fact of being in their 
 presence. 
 
 He knows how, from the very first word, 
 by a look, by a smile, to show them that 
 he adores them, to arouse their attention, 
 
AFLOAT. 197 
 
 to sharpen their wish to please, to display 
 for his benefit all their powers of seduction. 
 Between them and him there is established 
 at once, a quick sympathy, a fellowship of 
 instincts, almost a relationship through 
 similarity of character and nature. 
 
 Then begins between them and him a 
 combat of coquetry, and gallantry ; a 
 mysterious, and skirmishing sort of friend- 
 ship is cemented, and an obscure affinity 
 of heart and mind is drawn closer. 
 
 He knows how to say what will please 
 them, how to make them understand what 
 he thinks ; how to make known, without 
 ever shocking them, without offending 
 their delicate and watchful modesty, the 
 admiration, discreet yet ardent, always 
 burning in his eyes, always tremb- 
 ling on his lips, always alight in his veins. 
 He is their friend and their slave, the 
 humble servitor of their caprices, and the 
 admirer of their persons. He is ever at 
 their beck and call, ready to help them, 
 to defend them, as secret allies. He 
 
198 AFLOAT. 
 
 would love to devote himself to them, not 
 only to those he knows slightly, but to 
 those he knows not at all, to those he 
 has never even seen. 
 
 He asks nothing of them but a little 
 pretty affection, a little confidence, or a 
 little interest, a little graceful friendliness 
 or even, sly malice. 
 
 He loves, in the street the woman who 
 passes by, and whose glance falls upon him. 
 He loves the young girl with hair stream- 
 ing down her shoulders, who, a blue bow 
 on her head, a flower in her bosom, moves 
 with slow or hurried step, timid or bold 
 eye, through the throng on the pavements. 
 He loves the unknown ones he elbows, the 
 little shop woman who dreams on her 
 doorstep, the fine lady who lazily reclines 
 in her open carriage. 
 
 From the moment he finds himself face 
 to face with a woman, his heart is stirred, 
 and his best powers are awakened. He 
 thinks of her, talks for her, tries to please 
 her, and to let her understand that she 
 
AFLOAT. J99 
 
 pleases him. Tender expressions hover 
 on his lips, caresses in his glance ; he is 
 invaded by a longing to kiss her hand, to 
 touch even the stuff of her dress. For him, 
 it is women who adorn the world, and 
 make life seductive. 
 
 He likes to sit at their feet, for the mere 
 pleasure of being there ; he likes to meet 
 their eye, merely to catch a glimpse of 
 their veiled and fleeting thoughts ; he 
 likes to listen to their voice, solely because 
 it is the voice of woman. 
 
 It is by them, and for them, that the 
 Frenchman has learnt to talk, and to 
 display the ready wit which distinguishes 
 him. 
 
 To talk! What is it? It is the art 
 of never seeming wearisome ; of knowing 
 how to invest every trifle with interest, to 
 charm no matter what be the subject, 
 to fascinate with absolutely nothing. 
 
 How can one describe the airy butterfly 
 touch upon things by supple words, the 
 running fire of wit, the dainty flitting of 
 
200 AFLOAT. 
 
 ideas, which should all go to compose 
 talk? 
 
 The Frenchman is the only being in the 
 world who has this subtle spirit of wit, 
 and he alone thoroughly enjoys and com- 
 prehends it. 
 
 His wit is a mere flash and yet it dwells ; 
 now the current joke, now the wit, which 
 illumines the national literature. 
 
 That which is truly innate, is wit 
 in the largest sense of the word, that 
 vast breath of irony or gaiety, which has 
 animated the nation from the moment it 
 could think or speak : it is the pungent 
 raciness of Montaigne and Eabelais, the 
 irony of Voltaire, of Beaumarchais, of 
 Saint-Simon, and the inextinguishable 
 laughter of MoHere. 
 
 The brilliant sally, the neat epigram, is 
 the small-change of this wit. And never- 
 theless, it is yet an aspect of it, a char- 
 acteristic peculiarity of the national in- 
 telligence. It is one of its keenest charms. 
 It is this that makes the sceptical gaiety 
 
AFLOAT. 201 
 
 of Paris life, tlie careless cheerfulness of 
 their manners and customs. It is part 
 and parcel of the social amenity. 
 
 Formerly, these pleasant jests were 
 made in verse, now-a-days they appear 
 in prose. They are called, according to 
 their date, epigrams, bons mots, traits, hits, 
 gauloiseries. They fly through town and 
 drawing-room, they spring up everywhere, 
 on the boulevard as well as Montmartre. 
 And those of Montmartre are often just as 
 good as those of the boulevard, they are 
 printed in the papers; from one end of 
 France to the other, they excite laughter. 
 For, at least, the French know how to 
 laugh. 
 
 Why should one good thing more than 
 another, the unexpected, quaint, juxta- 
 position of two terms, two ideas or even 
 two sounds ; a ridiculous pun, some un- 
 expected cock-and-bull story, open the 
 floodgates of our gaiety, causing explosions 
 of mirth, fit to blow up all Paris and the 
 provinces like a mine ? 
 
 o 2 
 
202 AFLOAT. 
 
 Why do all the French laugh, while all 
 the English and all the Germans can 
 understand nothing of the fun ? Why ? 
 solely and wholly because they are French, 
 because they possess the intelligence 
 which is peculiar to the French, and because 
 they possess the delightful, enviable gift of 
 laughter. 
 
 With them, moreover, a little mother- 
 wit, enables any government to hold its 
 own. 
 
 Good spirits takes the place of genius, 
 a neat saying consecrates a man at once, 
 and makes him great for all posterity. 
 The rest matters little. The nation loves 
 those who amuse it, and forgives every- 
 thing to those who can make it laugh. 
 
 A glance thrown over the past history 
 of France, will make us understand that 
 the fame of their great men, has only been 
 made by flashes of wit. The most 
 detestable princes have become popular by 
 agreeable jests, repeated and remembered 
 from century to century. 
 
AFLOAT. 203 
 
 The throne of France, is maintained by 
 the cap and bells of the jester. 
 
 Jests, jests, nothing but jests, ironic or 
 heroic, polished or coarse, — jests float for 
 ever to the surface in their history, and 
 make it like nothing so much as a collec- 
 tion of puns and witticisms. 
 
 Clovis, the Christian king, cried on 
 hearing the story of the Passion : 
 
 "Why was I not there with my 
 Franks ? " This prince, in order to reign 
 alone, massacred his allies and his rela- 
 tions, and committed every crime imagi- 
 nable. Nevertheless, he is looked upon as 
 a pious and civilizing monarch. 
 
 " Why was I not there with my 
 Franks ? " 
 
 We should know nothing of good King 
 Dagobert, if the song had not" apprised us 
 of a few particulars, no doubt erroneous, 
 of his existence. 
 
 Pepin, wishing to remove the king 
 Childeric from the throne, proposed to Pope 
 Zacharias the following insidious question : 
 
204 AFLOAT. 
 
 " Which of the two is the most worthy 
 to reign ? He who worthily fulfils all the 
 kingly functions without the title, or he 
 who bears the title without knowing how 
 to reign ? " 
 
 What do we know of Louis VI. ? 
 Nothing. Pardon ! In the battle of 
 Brenneville, when an Englishmen laid 
 hands upon him, crying, "The king is 
 taken," this truly French monarch replied: 
 "Do you know, knave, that a king can 
 never be taken, even at chess ? " 
 
 Louis IX., saint though ho was, has not 
 left a single good saying to remember him 
 by. In consequence, his reign appears to 
 the French a wearisome episode, full of 
 orisons and penances. 
 
 That noodle, Philip VI., beaten and 
 wounded at the battle of Crecy, cried as he 
 knocked at the gates of the castle of 
 Arbroie : " Open : here are the fortunes of 
 France ! " They are still grateful to him 
 for this melodramatic speech. John II., 
 made prisoner by the Prince of Wales, 
 
AFLOAT. 205 
 
 remarks, with oMvalrous good will, and the 
 graceful gallantry of a French troubadour, 
 " I had counted upon entertaining you at 
 supper to-night ; but fortune wills other- 
 wise, and ordains that I should sup with 
 you." 
 
 It would be impossible to bear adversity 
 more gracefully. 
 
 "It is not for the King of France to 
 avenge the quarrels of the Duke of 
 Orleans," was the generous declaration of 
 IjQuis XII. And it is, truly, a kingly 
 saying ; one worthy of the remembrance 
 of all princes. 
 
 That hare-brained fellow Francis I., 
 more apt at the pursuit of the fair sex, 
 than at the conduct of a campaign, has 
 saved his reputation, and surrounded his 
 name with an imperishable halo, by 
 writing to his mother those few superb 
 words, after the defeat of Pavia: " All is 
 lost, Madame, save honour." 
 
 Does not that phrase remain to this day 
 as good as a victory ? Has it not made 
 
206 AFLOAT. 
 
 this prince more illustrious, than the 
 conquest of a kingdom? We have for- 
 gotten the names of the greater number 
 of the famous battles, fought in these 
 long bygone days ; but shall we oyer 
 forget : " All is lost, save honour ? " 
 
 Henry IV. ! Hats off, gentlemen ! Here 
 is the master ! Sly, sceptical, tricky, 
 deceitful beyond beliefj artful beyond 
 compare ; a drunkard, debauchee, un- 
 believer, he managed by a few happy 
 and pointed sayings, to make for himself 
 in history, an admirable reputation as a 
 chivalrous, generous king, a brave, loyal, 
 and honest man. 
 
 Oh ! the cheat ! well did he know how 
 to play upon human stupidity ! 
 
 " Hang yourself, brave Crillon, we have 
 •gained the day without you." 
 
 After a speech like this, a general is 
 always ready to be hanged, or killed for 
 his master's sake. 
 
 At the opening of the famous battle of 
 Ivry r " Children, if the colours fall, rally 
 
AFLOAT. 20? 
 
 to my white plumes, you will find them 
 always on the road to honour and vie- 
 tory." 
 
 How could a man fail to he victorious, 
 who knew how to speak thus to his 
 captains and his troops ? 
 
 This sceptical monarch wishes for 
 Paris ; he longs for it, hut he must choose 
 between his faith and the beautiful city : 
 " Enough," he murmurs, " after all 
 Paris is well worth a mass ! " And he 
 changes his religion, as he would have 
 changed his coat. Is it not a fact, 
 however, that the witticism caused a 
 ready acceptance of the deed? "Paris 
 is well worth a mass," raised a laugh 
 among the choicer spirits, and there was 
 no violent indignation over the change. 
 
 Has he not become the patron of all 
 fathers of families, by the question put to 
 the Spanish Ambassador, who found him 
 playing at horses with the Dauphin : 
 " Are you a father, M. I'Ambassadeur ? " 
 
208 AFLOAT. 
 
 The Spaniard replied : " Yes, sir." 
 
 " In that case," said the King, " we will 
 go on." 
 
 But he made a conquest for all eternity 
 of the heart of France, of the bourgeoisie, 
 and of the people, hy the finest phrase 
 that prince ever pronounced, — a real in- 
 spiration of genius, full of depth, heartiness, 
 sharpness, and good sense. 
 
 "If God prolongs my life, I hope to 
 see in my kingdom no peasant so poor, that 
 he cannot put a fowl in the pot for his 
 Sunday's dinner." 
 
 It is with words such as these, that 
 enthusiastic and foolish crowds are 
 flattered and governed. By a couple 
 of clever sayings, Henry IV. has drawn 
 his own portrait for posterity. One 
 cannot pronounce his name, without at 
 once having a vision of the white plumes, 
 and of the delicious flavour of a j^oule- 
 au-pot. 
 
 Louis XIII. made no happy hits. This 
 dull King had a dull reign. 
 
AFLOAT. 209 
 
 Louis XIV. created the formula of 
 absolute personal power : "The State is 
 myself." 
 
 He gave the measure of royal pride in 
 its fullest expansion : " I have almost had 
 to wait." 
 
 He set the example of sonorous political 
 phrases, which make alliances between 
 two nations : " The Pyrenees exist no 
 longer ! " 
 
 All his reign is in these few phrases. 
 
 Louis XV., most corrupt of Kings, 
 elegant and witty, has bequeathed to 
 posterity that delightful keynote of his 
 supreme indifference : " After me, the 
 deluge." 
 
 H Louis XVI. had been inspired enough 
 to perpetrate one witticism, he might 
 possibly have saved his kingdom. With 
 one boil mot, might he not perhaps have 
 escaped the guillotine ? 
 
 Napoleon I. scattered around him by 
 handfuls, the sayings that were suited to 
 the hearts of his soldiers. 
 
210 AFLOAT. 
 
 Napoleon III. extinguished witli one 
 brief phrase, all the future indignation of 
 the French nation in that first promise : 
 " The Empire is peace." The Empire is 
 peace ! superb declaration, magnificent lie ! 
 After having said that, he might declare 
 war against the whole of Europe, without 
 having anything to fear from his people. 
 He had found a simple, neat, and striking 
 formula, capable of appealing to all minds, 
 and against which facts would be no 
 argument. 
 
 He made war against China, Mexico, 
 Russia, Austria, against all the world. 
 "What did it matter ? There are people 
 yet, who speak with sincere convic- 
 tion of the eighteen years of tranquillity 
 he gave to France : " The Empire is 
 peace." 
 
 And it was also with his keen words of 
 satire, phrases more mortal than bullets, 
 that M. Rochefort laid the Empire low, 
 riddling it with the arrows of his wit, 
 cutting it to shreds and tatters. 
 
AFLOAT, 211 
 
 The Marechal MacMahon himself has 
 left as a souvenir of his career to power : 
 " Here I am, here I remain ! " And 
 it was by a shaft from Gambetta that he 
 was, in his turn, knocked down : 
 "Submission or dismissal." 
 
 With these two words, more powerful 
 than a revolution, more formidable than 
 the barricades, more invincible than an 
 army, more redoubtable than all the votes, 
 the tribune turned out the soldier, crushed 
 his glory, and destroyed his power and 
 prestige. 
 
 As to those who govern France at this 
 moment, they must fall, for they are 
 devoid of wit ; they will fall, for in the 
 day of danger, in the day of dis- 
 turbance, in the inevitable moment of 
 see-saw, they will not be capable of 
 making France laugh, and of disarming 
 her. 
 
 Of all these historical phrases, there are 
 not ten really authentic. But what does 
 it matter, so long as they are believed to 
 
212 AFIiOAT. 
 
 have been uttered by those to whom they 
 are attributed : 
 
 " Dans le pays des bossus 
 II faut I'etre 
 Ou le paraitre," * 
 
 says the popular song. 
 
 Meanwhile the commercial travellers 
 were talking of the emancipation of women, 
 of their rights, and of the new position in 
 society they longed for. 
 
 Some approved, others were annoyed; 
 the little fat man jested without ceasing, 
 and ended the breakfast, as well as the 
 discussion, by the following entertaining 
 anecdote : 
 
 " Lately," said he, " there was a great 
 meeting in- England, where this question 
 was discussed. One of the orators had 
 been setting forth numerous arguments in 
 favour of the women's case, and wound up 
 with this observation : 
 
 " To conclude, gentlemen, I may observe 
 
 * In the country of hunchbacks 
 One must be so, 
 Or at least appear so. 
 
AFLOAT. 213 
 
 that the difference between man and woman 
 is after all, very small." 
 
 A powerful voice, from an enthusiastic 
 and thoroughly convinced listener, arose 
 from the audience, crying : " Hurrah for 
 the small difference ! " 
 
Saint-Teopez, April IZth. 
 
 As it was remarkably fine this morning, 
 I started for the Chartreuse cle la Verne. 
 
 Two recollections draw me towards this 
 ruin : that of the sensation of infinite 
 solitude and the unforgettable melancholy 
 of the deserted cloister ; and also that of 
 an old peasant couple, to whose cottage I 
 had been taken the year before by a friend 
 who was guiding me across this country 
 of the Moors. 
 
 Seated in a country cart, for the road 
 soon became impracticable for a vehicle on 
 springs, I followed the line of the bay to 
 its deepest point. I could see upon the 
 opposite shore the pine woods where the 
 Compwny is attempting to create another 
 winter resort. The shore indeed is 
 
AFLOAT. 
 
 215 
 
 exquisite, and the ^Yhole country magni- 
 ficent. Then the road plunges into the 
 mountains, and soon passes through the 
 town of Cogolin. A little further on, I 
 quitted it for a rough lirohcn lane, which 
 
 was scarcely more than a long rut. A 
 river, or rather a big stream, runs hy the 
 side, and every hundred yards or so, cuts 
 through the ravine, floods it, wanders 
 away a little, returns, loses itself again, 
 quits its bed and drowns the track, then 
 lalls into a ditch, strays through a field of 
 
216 AFLOAT. 
 
 stones, appears suddenly to calm down into 
 wisdom, and for a while follows its due 
 course ; but seized aU at once by some wild 
 fancy, it precipitates itself again into the 
 road, and changes it into a marsh, in which 
 the horse sinks up to the breast-plate, and 
 the high vehicle up to the driving seat. 
 
 There are no more houses ; only from 
 time to time, a charcoal burner's hut ; the 
 poorest live in absolute holes. Is it not 
 almost incredible that men should inhabit 
 holes in the ground, where they live all the 
 year, cutting wood and burning it to ex- 
 tract the charcoal, eating bread and onions, 
 drinking water, and sleeping like rabbits 
 in their burrows, in narrow caverns hewn 
 in the granite rocks. Lately, too, in the 
 midst of these unexplored valleys, a hermit 
 has been discovered, a real hermit, hidden 
 there for these thirty years, unknown to 
 anyone, even to the forest rangers. 
 
 The existence of this wild man, revealed 
 by I know not whom, was, no doubt, 
 mentioned to the driver of the diligence. 
 
AFLOAT. 217 
 
 who spoke of it to the post-master, who 
 talked of it to the telegraph clerk male or 
 female, who flew with the wonder to the 
 editor of some little local paper, who made 
 out of it a sensational paragraph, copied 
 into all the country journals of Provence. 
 
 The police set to work, to hunt out the 
 hermit, without apparently causing him 
 any alarm, whence we may conclude that 
 he had kept all needful papers by him. 
 But a photographer, excited by the news, 
 set off in his turn, wandered three days 
 and three nights amongst the mountains, 
 and ended by photographing some one, the 
 real hermit some say, an impostor, others 
 will tell you. 
 
 Last year then, the friend who first 
 revealed to me this strangely quaint 
 country, showed me two creatures in- 
 finitely more curious, than the poor devil 
 who had come to hide in these impene- 
 trable woods, a grief, a remorse, an incur- 
 able despair, or perhaps simply the men; 
 ennui of living. 
 
 p 2 
 
218 AFLOAT. 
 
 This is how he first discovered them. 
 Wandering on horseback among these 
 valleys, he suddenly came across a pros- 
 perous farm : vines, fields, and a farm- 
 house, which looked comfortable though 
 humble. 
 
 He entered. He was received by a 
 woman, a peasant, about seventy years 
 old. The husband, seated under a tree, 
 rose and came forward to bow. 
 
 " He is deaf," she said. 
 
 He was a fine old fellow of eighty, 
 amazingly strong, upright, and handsome. 
 They had for servants, a labourer and a 
 farm-girl. My friend, a Httle surprised to 
 meet these singular persons in the midst 
 of a desert, enquired about them. They 
 had been there for a long time ; they were 
 much respected, and passed for being com- 
 fortably off, that is, for peasants. 
 
 He came back several times to visit 
 them, and little by little became the con- 
 fidant of the wife. He brought her papers 
 and books, being surprised to find that 
 
AFLOAT. 219 
 
 she had some ideas, or rather remains of 
 ideas, which scarcely seemed those of her 
 class. She was, however, neither well read, 
 intelligent nor witty, but there seemed to 
 be, in the depths of her memory, traces 
 of forgotten thoughts, a slumbering recol- 
 lection of a bye-gone education. One 
 day, she asked him his name : 
 
 " I am the Count de X. . .," he said. 
 
 Moved by the obscure vanity which is 
 lodged deep in all souls, she replied : 
 
 " I too am noble." 
 
 Then she went on, speaking for cer- 
 tainly the first time in her life, of this 
 piece of ancient history, unknown to 
 anyone. 
 
 " I am the daughter of a colonel. My 
 husband was a non-commissioned officer in 
 my father's regiment. I fell in love with 
 him, and we ran away together. 
 
 "And you came here ? " 
 
 " Yes, we hid ourselves." 
 
 " And you have never seen your family 
 since ? " 
 
220 AFLOAT. 
 
 " Oh no ! don't you see my husband 
 was a deserter." 
 
 " You have never written to anyone ? " 
 
 "Oh no!" 
 
 "And you have never heard anyone 
 speak of your family, of your father, or 
 mother ? " 
 
 " Oh no, mama was dead." 
 
 This woman had preserved a certain 
 childishness, the simplicity of those who 
 throw themselves into love, as if over a 
 precipice. 
 
 He asked again : 
 
 " You have never told this to anyone ? " 
 
 She answered : " Oh no ! I can say it 
 now, because Maurice is deaf. As long as 
 he could hear, I should not have dared to 
 mention it. Besides, I have never seen 
 anyone but the peasants since I ran 
 away." 
 
 " At least, then, you have been 
 happy ? " 
 
 " Oh yes; very happy. I have been very 
 happy. I have never regretted anything." 
 
AFLOAT. 221 
 
 Well, I also had gone last year to visit 
 this woman, this couple, as one goes to 
 gaze at some miraculous relic. 
 
 I had contemplated with surprise, sad- 
 ness, and even a little disgust, this woman 
 who had followed this man, this rustic 
 Adonis, attracted by his hussar uniform, 
 and who had continued to see him under 
 his peasant's rags, with the blue dolman 
 slung over his back, sword at his side, and 
 the high boot with clanking spur. 
 
 She had, however, become a peasant 
 herself. In the depths of this wilderness, 
 she had become perfectly accustomed to 
 this life without luxuries, without charm, 
 or delicacy of any sort, she had adapted 
 herself to these simple manners. And 
 she loved him still. She had become a 
 woman of the people, in cap and coarse 
 petticoat. Seated on a straw-bottomed 
 chair at a wooden table, she eat a mess 
 of cabbage, potatoes and bacon from an 
 earthenware plate. She slept on a straw 
 mattress beside him. 
 
222 AFLOAT. 
 
 She had never thought of anything but 
 him! She had regretted neither orna- 
 ments, nor silks, nor elegance, nor soft 
 chairs, nor the perfumed warmth of well- 
 curtained rooms, nor repose in a comfort- 
 able bed. She had never needed anything 
 but him ! As long as he was there, she 
 had wanted nothing else ! 
 
 She was quite young when she aban- 
 doned life, the world, and those who had 
 brought her up and loved her. Alone 
 with him she had come to this savage 
 ravine. And he had been everything to 
 her, everything that could be longed for, 
 dreamt of, expected, ceaselessly hoped for. 
 He had filled her life with happiness from 
 one end to another. She could not have 
 been happier. 
 
 Now I was going for the second time to 
 see her again, filled with the surprise, and 
 the vague contempt, with which she 
 inspired me. 
 
 She lived near the Hyeres road, on the 
 opposite slope of the mountain on which 
 
224 AFLOAT. 
 
 stands the Chartreuse de la Verne; and 
 another carriage was awaiting me on this 
 road, for the deep track we had followed, 
 had now ceased and become a mere foot- 
 path, only accessible to pedestrians and 
 mules. 
 
 I started therefore alone, on foot, and 
 with slow steps to climb the mountains. 
 I was in a delightful wood, a real Corsican 
 thicket, a fairy tale wood composed of 
 flowering creepers, aromatic plants with 
 powerful scents, and huge magnificent 
 trees. 
 
 The granite fragments in the track 
 sparkled as they rolled beneath my steps, 
 and in the openings between the branches, 
 I saw sudden peeps of wide gloomy valleys 
 full of verdure, winding lengthily away to 
 the distance. 
 
 I was warm, the quick blood flowed 
 within my flesh, I felt it coursing through 
 my veins, burning, rapid, alert, rhythmical 
 and alluring as a song; the vast song 
 brutish and gay, of life in movement under 
 
AFLOAT. 225 
 
 the sun. I was tappy, I was strong, I 
 quickened my pace, climbed the rocks, 
 ran, jumped, and discovered every minute 
 a larger view, a more gigantic network of 
 desert vaUeys, from whence not one single 
 chimney sent up a wreath of smoke. 
 
 Then I reached the top, dominated by 
 other heights, and after making some 
 circuit, perceived on the slope of the 
 mountain before me, a bleak ruin, a heap 
 of dark stones, and of ancient buildings 
 supported by lofty arcades. To reach it, 
 it was necessary to go round a large ravine, 
 and to cross a chestnut grove. The trees, 
 old as the abbey itself, enormous, muti- 
 lated and dying, had survived the build- 
 ing. Some have fallen, no longer able to 
 sustain the weight of j'ears ; others, be- 
 headed, have now only a hollow trunk in 
 which ten men could conceal themselves. 
 And they look like a formidable army of 
 giants, who in spite of age and thunder- 
 bolts are ready still to attempt the assault 
 of the skies. In this fantastic wood one 
 

228 AFLOAT. 
 
 feels tte mouldy touch of centuries, the 
 old, old life of the rotting roots, amidst 
 which, at the feet of these colossal stumps, 
 nothing can grow. For amongst the grey 
 trunks the ground is of hard stones and a 
 blade of grass is rare. 
 
 Here are two fenced springs, or 
 fountains, kept as drinking places for the 
 cows. 
 
 I approach the abbey, and find myself 
 face to face with the old buildings, the 
 most ancient of which date back to the 
 12th century, while the more recent are 
 inhabited by a family of shepherds. 
 
 In the first court, one sees by the traces 
 of animals, that a remnant of life still 
 haunts the spot; then after traversing 
 crumbling and tumbling halls, like those 
 of all ruins, one reaches the cloister, a long 
 and low walk still under cover, surround- 
 ing a tangled square of brambles and tall 
 grasses. In no spot in the world, have I 
 felt such a weight of melancholy press upon 
 my heart, as in this ancient and sinister 
 
AFLOAT. 229 
 
 cloister, true pacing court of monks. 
 Certainly, the form of the arcades and the 
 proportions of the place contribute to my 
 emotion, to my heartache, and sadden my 
 soul by their action on my eyes, exactly as 
 the happy curve of some cheering bit of 
 architecture would rejoice them. The man 
 who built this retreat must have been pos- 
 sessed with a despairing heart, to have an 
 inspiration so desolate and dreary. One 
 would fain weep and groan within these 
 walls, one longs to suffer, to reopen all the 
 wounds of one's heart, to enlarge and make 
 the very utmost of all the sorrows com- 
 pressed within it. 
 
 I climbed upon a breach in the wall to 
 see the view outside, and I understood my 
 emotion. Nothing living around, nothing 
 anywhere but death. Behind the abbey, 
 a mountain ascending up to the sky, around 
 the ruins the chestnut grove, in front a 
 valley, and beyond that, more valleys, — 
 pines, pines, an ocean of pines, and on the 
 far horizon, pines still on the mountain tops. 
 
230 
 
 AFLOAT. 
 
 And I left the place. 
 
 I crossed next a wood of cork trees, 
 where, a year ago, I had experienced a 
 shock of strong and moving surprise. 
 
 It was on a'grey day of October, at the 
 
 time when they strip the bark of these 
 trees, to make corks of it. They strip 
 them thus from the foot to the first 
 branches, and the denuded trunk becomes 
 red, a blood red as of a flayed limb. They 
 have grotesque and twisted shapes ; the 
 look of maimed creatures writhing in 
 
AFI-OAT. 
 
 231 
 
 epileptic fits, and I suddenly fancied my- 
 self transported into a forest of tormented 
 beings, a bleeding and Dantcsque forest of 
 hell, ■where men bad roots, where bodies 
 deformed l)y tnrf-uro, resembled trees. 
 
 where life ebbed incessantly, in never- 
 ending torment by these bleeding wounds, 
 which produced upon me the tension of the 
 nerves and faintness that sensitive people 
 feel at the sudden sight of blood, or the 
 unexpected shock of a man crushed, or 
 
232 AFLOAT. 
 
 fallen from a roof. And this emotion was 
 so keen, this sensation so vivid, that I 
 imagined I heard distracting cries and 
 plaints, distant and innumerable ; I 
 touched one of these trees, to reassure my 
 fainting spirit, and I fancied, I beheld my 
 hand, as I drew it back, covered with 
 blood. 
 
 To-day they are cured — till the next 
 barking. 
 
 At length the road appears, passing 
 near the farm which has sheltered the 
 long happiness of the non-commissioned 
 officer of hussars, and the Colonel's 
 daughter. 
 
 From afar, I recognize the old man 
 walking among the vines. So much the 
 better; the wife will be alone in the 
 house. 
 
 The servant was washing in front of the 
 door. 
 
 " Your mistress is here," I said. 
 
 She replied, with a singular look, in the 
 accent of the south : 
 

234 AFLOAT. 
 
 "No, sir; since six months she is no 
 more." 
 
 " She is dead ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " And of what ? " 
 
 The woman hesitated, then muttered : 
 
 " She is dead — dead, I tell you.'' 
 
 "But of what?" 
 
 " Of a fall, then ! " 
 
 "A fall! where from?" 
 
 " From the window." 
 
 I gave her a few pence. 
 
 " Tell me about it," I said. 
 
 No doubt she strongly wished to talk of 
 it, no doubt, too, she had often repeated 
 this history for the last six months, for she 
 retailed it at great length, as a story well- 
 known by heart and invariable in its 
 repetition. 
 
 Then I learnt that for thirty years, the 
 old deaf man had had a mistress in the 
 neighbouring village, and that his wife 
 having learnt this by chance from a passing 
 carter, who spoke of it without knowing 
 
AFLOAT. 235 
 
 who she was, rushed panting and be- 
 wildered to the attic, and there hurled 
 herself from the window, not perhaps with 
 deliberate purpose, but impelled by the 
 torture of the horrible agony caused by her 
 discoYery, which goaded her forward in an 
 irresistible gust of passion, like a whip 
 lashing and cutting. She had flown up 
 the staircase, burst open the door, and 
 without knowing, without being able to 
 stop her headlong speed, had continued to 
 run straight ahead and had leaped into 
 empty space. 
 
 He had known nothing of it ; he did 
 not know even now ; he would never know, 
 because he was deaf. His wife was dead, 
 that was all. All the world must die 
 some time or other ! 
 
 I could see him at a distance giving 
 orders by signs to his labourers. 
 
 Then I caught sight of the carriage 
 which was waiting for me in the shade of 
 a, tree, and I returned to Saint-Tropez. 
 
April lith. 
 
 I WAS going to bed yesterday evening, 
 although it was only nine o'clock, when a 
 telegram was handed to me, A friend, 
 one of my dearest, sent me this message : 
 " I am at Monte-Carlo for four days, and 
 have been telegraphing to you at every 
 port on the coast. Come to me at once." 
 
 And behold, the wish to see him, the 
 longing to talk, to laugh, to gossip about 
 society, about things, about people ; the 
 longing to slander, to criticize, to blame, to 
 judge, to chatter, was alight within me in 
 a moment, like a conflagration. On that 
 morning, even, I should have been furious 
 at this recall, yet in the evening I was 
 enchanted at it ; I wished myself already 
 there, with the great dining-room of the 
 
AFLOAT. 237 
 
 restaurant full of people before my eyes, 
 and in my ears that murmur of voices in 
 which the numbers of the roulette table 
 dominate all other phrases, like the Domi- 
 nus mbiscum of the church services. 
 
 I called Bernard. 
 
 " We shall start at about four o'clock in 
 the morning for Monaco," I said to him. 
 
 He replied philosophically : 
 
 " If it is fine, sir." 
 
 '•■ It will be fine." 
 
 "The barometer is going down, though." 
 
 "Pooh ! it will go up again." 
 
 The mariner smiled an incredulous 
 smile. 
 
 I went to bed and to sleep. 
 
 It was I who woke the men. It was 
 dark, and a few clouds hid the sky. The 
 barometer had gone down still more. 
 
 The two men shook their heads with a 
 distrustful air. 
 
 I repeated : 
 
 " Pooh ! it will be fine. Come, let us 
 be off!" 
 
238 
 
 AFLOAT. 
 
 Bernard said : 
 
 " AVhen I can see the open, I know 
 what I am about ; but here, in this har- 
 bour, at the end of this gulf, one knows 
 
 nothing, sir, one can see nothing ; there 
 might bo a fearful sea on, without our 
 knowing anything about it." 
 
 I replied : 
 
 " The barometer has gone down, there- 
 fore we shall not have an east wind. Now, 
 if we have a west wind, we can put into 
 
AFLOAT. 239 
 
 Agay, which is only six or seven miles off." 
 The men did not seem much reassured ; 
 however, they got ready to start. 
 
 "Shall we take the dingy on deck," 
 asked Bernard. 
 
 " No, you will see it will be quite fine. 
 Let it tow astern as usual." 
 
 A quarter of an hour later, we had 
 quitted the harbour, and were running 
 through the entrance of the gulf, to a light 
 and intermittent breeze. 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 " Well you see, the weather is good 
 enough." 
 
 Soon, we had passed the black and 
 white tower built upon the Rabiou shoal, 
 and although sheltered by Cape Camarat 
 which runs far out into the open sea, and 
 of which the flashing light appeared from 
 minute to minute, the Bel-Ami was already 
 lifted forwards by long powerful slow 
 waves ; those hills of water which move 
 on, one behind the other, without noise, 
 without shock, without foam, menacing 
 
240 AFLOAT. 
 
 witliout fury, alarming in their very tran- 
 quillity. 
 
 One saw nothing, one only felt the ascent 
 and descent of the yacht over the dark and 
 silently moving waters. 
 
 Bernard said : 
 
 " There has been a gale out at sea 
 to-night, sir ; we shall be lucky if we get in 
 without accident." 
 
 The day broke brightly over the wild 
 crowding waves, and we all three looked 
 anxiously seawards to see if the squall 
 were returning. 
 
 All this time the boat was running a 
 great pace before the wind and with the 
 tide. Already Agay appeared on our beam, 
 and we held counsel whether we should 
 make for Cannes, to escape the rough 
 weather, or for Nice, running to seaward 
 of the isles. 
 
 Bernard would have preferred Cannes : 
 but as the breeze did not freshen, I decided 
 in favour of Nice. 
 
 For three hours all went well ; though 
 
AFLOAT. 241 
 
 the poor little yacht rolled like a cork in 
 the awful swell. 
 
 No one who is unacquainted with the open 
 sea, that sea of mountains, moving with 
 weighty and rapid strides, separated by 
 valleys which change place from second to 
 second, filled up and formed again inces- 
 santly, can guess, can imagine the myste- 
 rious, redoubtable, terrifying and superb 
 force of the waves. 
 
 Our little dingy followed far behind us, 
 at the extremity of forty yards of hawser, 
 through this liquid and dancing chaos. 
 We lost sight of it every moment, then 
 suddenly it would reappear perched on the 
 summit of a wave, floating along like a 
 great white bird. 
 
 Here is Cannes in the depth of its bay, 
 Saint-Honorat with its tower standing up 
 among the waves, and before us the Cape 
 d'Antibes. 
 
 The breeze freshened little by little, and 
 the crests of the waves became flocks of 
 sheep, those snowy sheep which move so 
 
242 AFLOAT. 
 
 fast, and of which the countless troop 
 careers along "without dog or shepherd 
 under the endless sky. 
 
 Bernard said to me : 
 
 " It will be all we shall do to make 
 Antibes." 
 
 And indeed seas began to break over us/ 
 with inexpressible and violent noise. The: 
 sharp squalls shook us, throwing us into' 
 yawning gulfs, whence as we emerged, we' 
 righted ourselves with terrible shocks. 
 
 The gaff was lowered, but at every 
 oscillation of the yacht, the boom touched 
 the waves and seemed ready to tear away 
 the mast, which if it should fly away with 
 the sail, would leave us to float alone and 
 lost upon the wild waves. 
 
 Bernard cried out : 
 
 " The dingy, sir." 
 
 I turned to look. A huge wave filled 
 it, rolled it over, enveloped it in foam as 
 if it would devour it, and, breaking the 
 hawser by which it was made fast to us, 
 took possession of it, half sinking, drowned ; 
 
AFLOAT. 243 
 
 a conquered prey which it will presently 
 throw upon the rocks down there, helow 
 the headland. 
 
 The minutes seem hours. Nothing can 
 be done, we must go on, round the point 
 in front of us, and when we have done 
 that, we shall be sheltered, and in safety. 
 
 At last we reach it ! The sea is now 
 .calm and smooth, protected as it is by 
 the long tongue of rocks and earth which 
 -forms the Cape of Antibes. 
 
 There is the harbour from which we 
 started only a few days ago, although it 
 seems to me we have been voyaging for 
 months, and we enter just as noon is 
 striking. 
 
 The men are radiant on finding them- 
 selves back again, though Bernard repeats 
 at every other moment : 
 
 " Ah, sir ! our poor little boat ; it went 
 to my heart, to see it go down like that ! " 
 
 As for me, I took the four o'clock train, 
 to go and dine with my friend in the 
 principality of Monaco. 
 
244 AFLOAT. 
 
 I wish I had time to write at length 
 about this surprising state ; smaller than 
 many a village in France, but wherein one 
 may find an absolute sovereign, bishops, 
 an army of Jesuits and seminarists more 
 numerous than that of the ruler ; an 
 artillery, the guns of which are nearly all 
 rifled, an etiquette more ceremonious than 
 that of his lamented Majesty Louis XIV., 
 principles of authority more despotic than 
 those of William of Prussia, joined to a mag- 
 nificent toleration for the vices of human- 
 ity, on which indeed, live both sovereign, 
 bishops, Jesuits, seminarists, ministers, 
 army, magistrates, every one in short. 
 
 Hail to this great pacific monarch, who 
 without fear of invasion or revolution, 
 reigns peacefully over his happy little 
 flock of subjects, in the midst of court 
 ceremonies which preserve intact the 
 traditions of the four reverences, the 
 twenty-six handkissings, and all the forms 
 used once upon a time around Great 
 Rulers. 
 
AFLOAT. 245 
 
 This monarch, moreover, is neither 
 sanguinary nor vindictive, and when he 
 banishes, for he does banish sometimes, 
 the measure is put in force with the 
 utmost delicacy. 
 Is a proof needful ? 
 
 An obstinate player, on a day of ill luck, 
 insulted the sovereign. A decree was 
 issued for his expulsion. 
 
 During a whole month, he prowled 
 around the forbidden Paradise, fearing the 
 sword blade of the archangel, in the guise 
 of the sabre of the policeman. One day, 
 however, he hardened his heart, crossed 
 the frontier, reached the very centre of 
 the kingdom in thirty seconds, and pene- 
 trated into the precincts of the Casino. 
 But suddenly an official stopped him : 
 " Are you not banished, sir ? " 
 "Yes, sir, but I leave by the next 
 train." 
 
 " Oh ! in that case it is all right. You 
 can go in." 
 
 And every week he came back : and 
 
246 AFLOAT. 
 
 each time, the same functionary asked 
 him the same question, to which he in- 
 variahly gave the same answer. 
 
 Could justice be more gentle ? 
 
 Within the last few years, however, a 
 very serious and novel case occurred within 
 the kingdom. 
 
 This was an assassination. 
 
 A man, a native of Monaco, not one of 
 the wandering strangers of whom one 
 meets legions on these shores — a husband, 
 in a moment of anger, killed his wife ; 
 killed her without rhyme or reason, with- 
 out any excuse that could be accepted. 
 
 Indignation was unanimous throughout 
 the principality. 
 
 The supreme Court met to judge this 
 exceptional case (a murder had never 
 taken place before), and the wretch was 
 with one voice, condemned to death. 
 
 The indignant sovereign ratified the 
 sentence. 
 
 There only remained to execute the 
 criminal. Then arose a difficulty. The 
 
AFLOAT. 247 
 
 country possessed neither guillotine nor 
 executioner. 
 
 What was to be done ? By the advice 
 of the minister of Foreign affairs, the 
 Prince opened negotiations with France 
 to obtain the loan of a headsman and his 
 apparatus. 
 
 Long deliberations took place in the 
 ministry at Paris. At last they replied 
 by sending an estimate of the cost 
 of moving the woodwork and the prac- 
 titioner. The whole amounted to sixteen 
 thousand francs (six hundred and forty 
 pounds). 
 
 The Monarch of Monaco reflected that 
 the operation would cost him dear; the 
 assassin was certainly not worth that price. 
 Sixteen thousand francs for the head of a 
 wretch like that ! Never ! 
 
 The same request was addressed to the 
 Italian government. A King and a 
 brother would no doubt show himself less 
 exacting than a Republic. 
 
 The Italian government sent in a bill 
 
248 AFLOAT, 
 
 which amounted to twelve thousand francs, 
 (four hundred and eighty pounds). 
 
 Twelve thousand francs ! It would be 
 necessary to impose a new tax, a tax of 
 two francs (twenty pence) a head ! This 
 would be enough to cause serious, and 
 hitherto unknown trouble in the State. 
 
 Then they bethought them of having 
 the villain beheaded by a simple soldier. 
 But the general, on being consulted, 
 replied hesitatingly, that perhaps his men 
 had scarcely sufficient practice to acquit 
 themselves satisfactorily of a task, which 
 undoubtedly demanded great experience in 
 the handling of the sword. 
 
 Then the Prince again assembled the 
 Supreme Court, and submitted to it this 
 embarrassing case. 
 
 They deliberated long, without finding 
 any practical way out of the difficulty. At 
 last the first president proposed to commute 
 the sentence of death, to that of life- 
 long imprisonment, and the measure was 
 adopted. 
 
AFLOAT. 249 
 
 But they did not possess a prison. It 
 was necessary to fit one up, and a gaoler 
 was appointed who took charge of the 
 prisoner. 
 
 For six months alJ went well. The 
 captive slept all day on a straw mattress 
 in the nook arranged for him, and his 
 guardian lazUy reclined upon a chair before 
 the door, while he watched the passers- 
 
 by. 
 
 The Prince, however, is economical — 
 extravagance is not his greatest fault — 
 and he has accurate accounts laid before 
 him of the smallest expenses of his State 
 (the list of them is not a long one). They 
 handed him, therefore, the bill of the ex- 
 penses incurred in the creation of this new 
 function, the cost of the prison, the prisoner, 
 and the watchman. The salary of this last 
 was a heavy burden on the budget of the 
 Sovereign. 
 
 At first he merely made a wry face over 
 it ; but when he reflected that this might 
 go on for ever (the prisoner was young), 
 
250 AFLOAT. 
 
 he requested his Minister of Justice to 
 take measures to suppress the expense. 
 
 The minister consulted the President of 
 the Tribunal, and the two agreed to 
 suppress the expense of a gaoler. The 
 prisoner, thus invited to guard himself, 
 could not fail to escape, which would solve 
 the question to the satisfaction of all 
 parties. 
 
 The gaoler was therefore restored to his 
 family, and it became the duty of a scullion 
 from the palace kitchen, to carry to the 
 prisoner his morning and evening meals. 
 But the captive made no attempt to 
 recover his liberty. 
 
 Finally, one day, as they had neglected 
 to furnish him with food, they beheld him 
 tranquilly appear at the palace to claim 
 it ; and from that day forward, it became 
 his 'habit to come at meal-times to the 
 palace, to eat with the servants, whose 
 friend he became, and thus save the cook 
 the trouble of the walk to and fro. 
 
 After breakfast, he would take a turn as 
 
AFLOAT. 251 
 
 far as Monte Carlo. He sometimes went 
 into the Casino, to venture a five-franc 
 piece on the green cloth. When he had 
 won, he gave himself a good dinner at one 
 of the most fashionable hotels ; then he 
 returned to his prison, carefully locking his 
 door on the inside. 
 
 He never slept away a single night. 
 The situation became a little puzzling, 
 not for the convict, but for the judges. 
 
 The court assembled afresh, and it was 
 decided that they should invite the criminal 
 to leave the State of Monaco. 
 
 When this decision was announced to 
 him, he simply replied : 
 
 " You are pleased to be facetious. 
 Well! and what would become of mo in 
 that case ? I have no longer any means of 
 subsistence. I have no longer a family. 
 What would you have me do? I was 
 condemned to death. You did not choose 
 to execute mo. I made no complaint. I 
 was afterwards condemned to imprison- 
 ment for life, and placed in the hands of a 
 
252 AFLOAT. 
 
 gaoler. You took away my guardian. 
 Again I made no complaint. 
 
 " Now, to-day, you want to turn me out 
 of the country. Not if I know it. I am a 
 prisoner, your prisoner, judged and 
 condemned by you. I am faithfully 
 fulfilling my sentence. I remain here." 
 
 The Supreme Court was floored. The 
 Prince was in a terrible rage, and ordered 
 fresh measures to be taken. 
 
 Deliberations were resumed. 
 
 Then, at last, they decided to offer to 
 the culprit a pension of six hundred francs 
 (twenty-four pounds), if he would leave 
 the State and live elsewhere, 
 
 He accepted. 
 
 He has rented a little plot five minutes' 
 walk from the kingdom of his former 
 sovereign, and lives happily upon his pro- 
 perty, cultivating a few vegetables, and 
 despising all potentates. 
 
 However, the Court of Monaco has pro- 
 fited, though a little late, by this experience, 
 and has made a treaty with the French 
 
AFLOAT. 253 
 
 Government, by which they send their con- 
 victs over to France, who keeps them out 
 of sight, in consideration of a modest com- 
 pensation. 
 
 In the judicial archives of the princi- 
 pality, one is shown the decree which 
 settles the pension, by which the rascal was 
 induced to leave the State of Monaco. 
 
 Opposite to the palace, rises the rival 
 establishment, the Roulette. There is, 
 however, no hatred, no hostility between 
 them; for the one supports the other, 
 which in return protects the first. Admi- 
 rable example ! unique instance of two 
 neighbouring and powerful families living 
 in peace in one tiny state : an example 
 well calculated to efface the remembrance 
 of the Capulets and the Montagues. Here, 
 the house of the sovereign ; there, the 
 house of play ; the old and the new society 
 fraternizing to the sound of gold. 
 
 The saloons of the Casino are as readily 
 opened to strangers, as those of the Prince 
 are difficult of access. 
 
254 ' AFLOAT. 
 
 I turn to the first. 
 
 A noise of money, continuous as that of 
 the waves, a noise at once deep, light and 
 terrible, fills the ears from the moment one 
 enters, then fills the soul, stirs the heart, 
 troubles the mind, and bewilders thought. 
 Everywhere this sound, this singing, crying, 
 calling, tempting, rending sound. 
 
 Around the tables, a motley crowd of 
 players, the scum of every continent and 
 of every society ; mixed with princes, or 
 future kings, women of fashion, bourgeois, 
 money lenders, disreputable women; a 
 mixture unique in the world, of men of all 
 races, of all castes, of all kinds, of every 
 origin ; a perfect museum of adventurers 
 from Eussia, Brazil, Chili, Italy, Spain, 
 Germany ; of old wonien with reticules, of 
 disreputable young ones carrying little bags 
 containing keys, a handkerchief, and the 
 three last five-franc pieces which are kept 
 for the green cloth, when the vein of luck 
 shall chance to return. 
 
 I approached the first table, and saw . . . 
 
AFLOAT. 255 
 
 a pale face, with lined forehead, and hard- 
 set lip ; features convulsed, with an ex- 
 pression of evil ... the young woman of 
 Agay bay, the beautiful sweetheart of the 
 sunny wood, and the moonlit bay. He, 
 too, is there, seated before her, his hand 
 resting on a few napoleons. 
 
 " Play on the first square," said she. 
 
 He inquired anxiously : 
 
 "All?" 
 
 " Yes, aU." 
 
 He placed the coins in a little heap. 
 
 The croupier turned the wheel. The 
 ball ran, danced, and stopped. 
 
 "Nothing further counts," jerks forth 
 the voice, which resumes after a moment : 
 
 " Twenty-eight." 
 
 The young woman started, and in a 
 hard, sharp tone said : 
 
 " Come away." 
 
 He rose, and without looking at her, 
 followed her ; and one felt that some dread- 
 ful thing had sprung up between them. 
 
 Some one remarked : 
 
256 AFLOAT. 
 
 " Good-bye to love. They don't look as 
 if ttey were of one mind to-day." 
 
 A hand taps me on the shoulder. I 
 turn round. It is my friend. 
 
 ******* 
 
 • I have only now to ask pardon for having 
 thus trespassed on my reader by talking so 
 much of myself. I had written this jour- 
 nal of day-dreams entirely for myself, or 
 rather, I had taken advantage of my float- 
 ing solitude, to capture the wandering 
 ideas which are wont to traverse our 
 minds, like birds on the wing. 
 
 But I am asked to publish these few 
 pages, which, unconnected, deficient in 
 composition and in art, follow one after 
 the other without a reason, and abruptly 
 conclude without a motive ; simply because 
 a squall of wind put an end to my voyage. 
 
 I have yielded to this request. Perhaps 
 I am wrong. 
 
 BRADBURY, AGNEW, & Co., PRIXTEBS, WHITEPRIAKS. 
 
REVOLUTION 
 
 In the Price of Tea. 
 
 BARBER AND COMPANY 
 
 ARE NOW ENABLED TO OFFER TO THE PUBLIC ■ 
 
 A G-ood, Pure, Pangent Leaf Conffo 
 
 NA.\rED 
 
 PACKOO 
 
 Per lb. 1 /^L Per lb. 
 
 SUPERSEDING EVERYTHING 
 
 HITHERTO OFFERED AT THE PRICE 
 
 2i-lbs. Samples sent Free, per Parcsl Post, for 3/10, 4i-lbs., 6/9; 
 
 6Hbs., 9/8 ; 8Wbs., 12/6 ; 10-lbs , 14/10 ; to any Post Town 
 
 in the United Kingdom. 
 
 NO CHARGE FOB CARRIAGE OF LARGER EARCELS. ] 
 
 PINE PURE C EYLO N TEA , 2/- PER Lb! 
 
 Cheques to be crossed London and Wctminster Bank. Postal Orders from 
 1/6 to 10/6 may now be had for One Penny from all Post Office^. 
 
 BARBER & COM PAN\ 
 
 274, EEaENT OIEOUS. OXFOED STEEET, ¥.; 
 61, BISHOPSGATE STEEET, LONDON, E.C; 
 
 and 
 102, Westbourne Grove, \V. ; King's Cross, N. ; 
 42, Great Titchfield .Street, W. ; Tlie Borough, London- Bridge. 
 
 BRIGHTON7-147, North Street, Birmingham — Quadrant. 
 
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