In this world, most naturally, the figure of the captain towered above all else. He was the fate, the soul and the brain of the ship. His character determined the work and the leisure of the crew. He selected his crew himself and it met his inclinations in many ways. He knew the habits and family life of each man. He possessed, in the eyes of his subordinates, magical knowledge, which enabled him to confidently plot a course from, say, Lisbon to Shanghai across the vast expanses. He repelled a storm by the counteraction of a system of complex efforts, squelching panic with curt orders; he sailed and stopped where he would; he was in command of the sailing and loading, repairs and leisure; it was difficult to imagine a greater and more sensible authority in a vital enterprise full of constant movement. This power, in its exclusiveness, and absoluteness, was equal to the power of Orpheus.
This notion of a captain, this image and this actual reality of his position occupied, by right of events of the spirit, the place of honour in Gray’s splendid imagination. No other profession save this could so successfully fuse into a single whole all the treasures of life, while preserving inviolable the most delicate design of each separate joy. Danger, risk, the forces of nature, the light of a distant land, the wondrous unknown, effervescent love, blossoming in rendezvous and parting; the fascinating turmoil of encounters, faces, events; the endless variety of life, while up above in the sky was now the Southern Cross, now the Big Dipper, and all the continents were in one’s keen eyes, though your cabin was replete with your ever-present homeland, with its books, pictures, letters and dried flowers entwined by a silken strand of hair in a suede locket on your manly chest.
In the autumn of his fifteenth year Arthur Gray ran away from home and passed through the golden gates of the sea. Soon after the schooner Anselm left Dubelt and set sail for Marseilles, with a ship’s boy aboard who had small hands and the face of a girl dressed in boy’s clothing. The ship’s boy was Gray, the owner of an elegant travelling-bag, patent leather boots as fine as kid gloves and batiste linen adorned with a crown crest.
In the course of a year, while the Anselm sailed from France to America and Spain, Gray squandered a part of his possessions on pastry-cakes, thus paying tribute to the past, and the rest, for the present and future, he lost at cards. He wanted to be a red-blooded sailor. He choked as he downed his liquor, and when bathing, his heart would falter as he dived from a height of twelve feet. He gradually lost everything except that which was most important – his strange, soaring spirit; he lost his frailty, becoming broad of bone and strong of muscle, his paleness gave way to a deep tan, he relinquished his refined carelessness of movement for the sure drive of a working hand, and there was a sparkle in his intelligent eyes as in a person’s who gazes into a fire. And his speech, having lost its uneven, haughtily shy fluidity, became brief and precise, as the thrust of a seagull at the quivering silver of a fish.
The captain of the Anselm was a kind man, but a stern seafarer who had taken the boy on out of maliciousness. He saw in Gray’s desperate desire but an eccentric whim and gloated in advance, imagining that in two months’ time Gray would say, avoiding his eyes: “Captain Hop, I’ve skinned my elbows climbing the rigging; my back and sides ache, my fingers don’t bend, my head is splitting and my legs are shaky. All these wet ropes weighing eighty pounds to balance in my hands; all these manropes, guy ropes, windlasses, cables, topmasts and cross-trees are killing my delicate body. I want to go home to my mamma.” After listening mentally to this speech, Captain Hop would deliver, also mentally, the following speech: “You can go wherever you want to, ducky. If any tar’s got stuck on your fine feathers you can wash it off at home – with Rose-Mimosa Cologne.”
This cologne that Captain Hop had invented pleased him most of all and, concluding his imaginary rebuke, he repeated aloud: “Yes. Run along to Rose-Mimosa.”
As time went by this impressive dialogue came to the captain’s mind less and less frequently, since Gray was advancing towards his goal with clenched teeth and a pale face. He bore the strenuous toil with a determined effort of will, feeling that it was becoming ever easier as the stern ship broke into his body and ineptitude was replaced by habit. On occasion the loop of the anchor chain would knock him off his feet, slamming him against the deck, or a rope that was not wound around the bitts would be torn out of his hands, taking the skin off his palms, or the wind would slap the wet corner of a sail with an iron ring sewn into it against his face; in a word, all his work was torture which demanded the utmost attention, yet, no matter how hard he breathed as he slowly straightened his back, a scornful smile never left his face. In silence did he endure all the scoffing, taunts and inevitable cursing until he became “one of the boys” in his new surroundings, but from then on he always countered an insult with his fists.
Once, when Captain Hop saw him skilfully tying a sail toll a yard, he said to himself: “Victory is on your side, you scoundrel.” When Gray climbed down to the deck Hop summoned him to his cabin and, opening a dog-eared book, said:
“Listen closely. Stop smoking! We’ll start fitting the pup out to be a captain.”
And he began to read or, rather, to enunciate and shout the ancient words of the sea. This was Gray’s first lesson. In the course of a year he got to know about navigation, shipbuilding, maritime law, sailing directions and bookkeeping. Captain Hop proffered him his hand and referred to the two of them as “we”.
His mother’s letter, full of tears and dread, caught up with Gray in Vancouver. He replied: “I know. But if you could only see as I do: look at things through my eyes. If you could only hear as I do: put a seashell to your ear – it carries the sound of an eternal wave; if you could only love as I do – everything, I would have found in your letter, besides love and a cheque, a smile.” And he went on sailing until the Anselm arrived with a cargo for Dubelt from whence, while the ship was docked, the twenty-year-old Gray set off to visit the castle.
Everything was as it had always been; as inviolable in detail and in general impression as five years before, although the crowns of the young elms were larger; the pattern they made on the facade of the building had moved and expanded.
The servants who came running were overjoyed, startled and froze as respectfully as if they had but yesterday greeted this Gray. He was told where his mother was; he entered the high chamber and, drawing the door shut softly, stopped soundlessly, gazing at the woman, now turned grey, in the black dress. She was standing before a crucifix; her fervent whisper was as audible as the pounding of a heart. “And bless those at sea, the wayfarers, the sick, the suffering and the imprisoned,” Gray heard the words as he breathed rapidly. There followed: “And my boy…” Then he said: “Here…”