The Toilers of the Sea

by Victor Hugo

  Now, whatever the clouds did, there was nothing to fear for the paunch and the engines. The water could no longer disturb them. Lying between the barrier at the Douvres that protected them at the west end and the new barricade to the east, they were out of reach of attack by either the sea or the wind.

  From the catastrophe Gilliatt had drawn salvation. At the end of the day the storm clouds had helped him.

  Then, taking up in the hollow of his hand a little water from a pool of rainwater, he drank it and cried to the clouds: "Fooled you!"

  It is a source of ironic joy for human intelligence engaged in conflict to see the boundless stupidity of the furious forces ranged against it actually rendering it a service, and Gilliatt felt the immemorial need to insult an enemy that goes back to the heroes of Homer.

  Gilliatt went down to the paunch and took advantage of the flashes of lightning to examine it. It was fully time that help had come to the long-suffering vessel, which had been badly shaken during the past hour and was beginning to warp. At a quick glance he could see no serious damage, though he was sure that it had endured some violent shocks. Once the sea had grown calmer the hull had righted itself; the anchors had behaved well; and the engines had been well secured by their four chains.

  As Gilliatt was completing his review something white passed close to him and disappeared into the darkness. It was a seagull.

  No sight is more reassuring in a storm. When birds appear it means that the tempest is on the way out.

  Another good sign was that the thunder was redoubling. The full violence of the tempest puts the thunder out of countenance. As all seamen know, the final stage of a storm is fierce, but brief. Particularly violent thunder is a harbinger of the end.

  Suddenly the rain ceased. Then there was only a surly rumble in the clouds. The storm died down with the suddenness of a plank falling to the ground. It was as if it had broken up. The immense buildup of clouds fell apart. A chink of clear sky split the darkness. Gilliatt was astonished: it was broad daylight.

  The storm had lasted almost twenty hours. The wind that had brought it had carried it away again. The horizon was obscured by scattered fragments of darkness. Broken and fleeting patches of mist gathered in tumultuous masses; from one end of the line of clouds to the other there was a movement of retreat; a long dying murmur could be heard; a few last drops of rain fell; and all the darkness with its thunders withdrew like a retreating host of war chariots. Suddenly the sky was blue.

  Gilliatt realized that he was tired. Sleep swoops down on fatigue like a bird of prey. Gilliatt sank down into the boat without choosing where to lie, and fell asleep. For several hours he remained inert, barely distinguishable from the beams and joists among which he was lying.

  BOOK IV

  OBSTACLES IN THE PATH

  I

  NOT THE ONLY ONE TO BE HUNGRY

  When he awoke he felt hungry.

  The water was now becoming calmer, but there was still enough agitation out at sea to make immediate departure impossible. Moreover, it was too late in the day. With the load that the paunch now had on board, it would be necessary to leave in the morning in order to arrive in Guernsey before midnight.

  In spite of his pressing hunger, Gilliatt began by stripping naked-- the only way to warm himself up. His clothes had been soaked by the storm, but the rain had washed out the seawater, so that they could now dry off. He kept nothing on but his trousers, which he rolled up to the knee.

  He spread out his shirt, his pea jacket, his oilskins, his leggings, and his sheepskin on the rocks around him, keeping them in place with small stones.

  Then he thought about eating.

  He used his knife, which he had been careful to sharpen and keep in good condition, to detach from the granite a few sea lice, of about the same species as the clams of the Mediterranean, which can be eaten raw--meager fare after all his toils. He had no biscuit left. There was now, however, no shortage of water. He had not merely had enough to quench his thirst: he was awash with it.

  He took advantage of the falling tide to ferret among the rocks in quest of crayfish. There was enough exposed rock to allow him to hope for a good catch.

  He did not reflect, however, that he could not cook anything. If he had taken the time to go to his storeroom he would have found it shattered by the rain. His wood and coal were under water, and of his stock of tow, which he used in place of tinder, every fragment was soaked. He had no means of lighting a fire.

  Moreover, his blower was out of order; the hood over the hearth of his forge had been broken off; the storm had pillaged his laboratory. With such tools as had escaped damage Gilliatt could, at a pinch, work as a carpenter but not as a smith. At the moment, however, he had no thoughts for his workshop.

  Drawn in another direction by his stomach, he had set out, without further reflection, in pursuit of his meal. He wandered about, not in the channel through the reef but outside, on the fringing rocks. It was in this quarter that the Durande, ten weeks ago, had struck the reef.

  For the quest on which Gilliatt was engaged the outside of the reef offered better prospects than the interior. At low tide crabs are accustomed to take the air; they like to warm themselves in the sun. These misshapen creatures are happiest at midday. Their emergence from the water in the full light of day is a curious sight. Swarming in such numbers, they arouse a feeling almost of disgust. When you see them, with their awkward sidelong walk, clambering heavily from crevice to crevice up the lower parts of the rocks as if they were climbing a staircase, you are compelled to admit that the ocean has its own type of vermin.

  For the last two months Gilliatt had been living on this vermin.

  On this particular day, however, the hermit crabs and crayfish had made themselves scarce. The storm had driven these solitary creatures back into their hiding places, and they had not yet felt able to venture out. Gilliatt held his knife open in his hand and from time to time scraped up a shellfish from under the seaweed, eating it as he walked.

  At this point he cannot have been far from the spot where Sieur Clubin had perished.

  Just as Gilliatt was making up his mind to content himself with sea urchins and sea chestnuts there was a splash at his feet. A large crab, scared off by his approach, had leapt into the water. It did not go so deep as to conceal it from his sight, and he ran after it along the base of the reef. The crab continued to flee, and suddenly it disappeared: it had found its way into some crevice under the rocks.

  Gilliatt clung on to some projections in the rock with one hand and bent down to look under the overhang.

  There was indeed a crevice in which the crab must have taken refuge.

  It was more than a crevice. It was a kind of porch. The sea made its way in through this porch, but it was not deep, and the bottom, covered with stones and shingle, could be seen. The stones were glaucous and covered with confervae, showing that they were always under water. They looked like children's heads covered with green hair.

  Gilliatt took his knife between his teeth, climbed down the steep rock face, and jumped into the water. It reached almost to his shoulders. He went through the porch and found himself in a rough kind of passage with crudely shaped pointed vaulting above his head. The walls were smooth and polished. He had lost sight of the crab. He was still within his depth. As he walked on the light increasingly faded, and soon he could make out nothing in the darkness. After he had advanced for some fifteen paces the vaulting above his head came to an end. He had emerged from the passage. There was more space, and therefore more light; and the pupils of his eyes had now dilated, so that he could see quite well. Then he had a surprise.

  He had entered the strange cavern that he had visited a month ago; only this time he had come in from the sea. He had just passed through the sunken arch that he had seen on his earlier visit; it could be traversed at certain particularly low tides.

  His eyes gradually accustomed themselves to the dim light, and he saw better and better. He was filled
with wonder. He was back in the extraordinary palace of darkness that he had discovered before, with its vaulting, its pillars, its bloodreds and purples, its vegetation of gemstones and, to the rear, the crypt that was almost a sanctuary and the stone that was almost an altar. He had little recollection of these details, but he had preserved the whole scene in his mind and he now saw it again. Facing him, at some height on the rock face, was the crevice through which he had entered the first time, and that from the point where he now was seemed inaccessible.

  Near the pointed arch he saw the low, dark cavities--caves within the cavern--which he had previously seen from a distance. Now he was quite close to them. The one nearest to him was out of the water and easily accessible.

  Still nearer, within reach of his hand, he noticed a horizontal fissure in the granite, above the water level. This was probably where the crab had found shelter. He thrust his hand in as far as he could and began to feel about in this hole of darkness.

  Suddenly he felt something seizing hold of his arm. He was struck with undescribable horror.

  Something in the dark cavity--something thin, rough, flat, ice-cold, slimy, living--had coiled around his bare arm and was creeping up toward his chest. It felt like the pressure of a belt drawn tight and the clinging grasp of a tendril. In less than a second an unseen spiral had invaded his wrist and elbow, with its tip reaching up to his armpit.

  Gilliatt threw himself backward, but found that he was barely able to move. With his left hand, which remained free, he grasped the knife that he had been carrying in his teeth and with this hand holding the knife he braced himself against the rock, making a desperate effort to withdraw his arm. He succeeded only in slightly loosening the thong holding his arm, which immediately tightened again. It was as supple as leather, as hard as steel, and as cold as night.

  A second thong, narrow and pointed, now emerged from the crevice in the rock, like a tongue issuing from a gaping jaw. It licked, appallingly, Gilliatt's naked chest and, suddenly becoming enormously longer and thinner, clung to his skin and coiled around his whole body. At the same time a terrible pang of pain, like nothing he had previously experienced, tensed Gilliatt's straining muscles. He felt horrible round prongs digging into his skin. It was as if innumerable lips were clinging to his flesh and seeking to drink his blood.

  Then a third undulating thong emerged from the rock, felt Gilliatt's body, lashed his ribs like a whip, and settled there.

  Anguish, reaching its paroxysm, is mute. Gilliatt did not utter a cry. There was enough light for him to see the repulsive forms that were latching onto him. A fourth thong, swift as an arrow, darted toward his belly and wound around it.

  It was impossible to cut or to tear off the viscous bands that were adhering to Gilliatt's body so closely and at so many points. Each of these points was a source of strange and fearful pain. He had the feeling that he was being swallowed by a host of mouths that were too small for the task.

  A fifth tentacle now came out of the hole. It settled on top of the others and then coiled over Gilliatt's diaphragm. This compression increased his anxiety: now he could scarcely breathe.

  The thongs were pointed at the tip and widened toward the base as a sword does toward the hilt. All five evidently came from a common center. They kept moving and crawling all over Gilliatt. He felt these obscure pressures, which seemed to him like mouths, shifting from place to place.

  Suddenly a large round, flat, viscous mass emerged from below the crevice. This was the center from which the five tentacles radiated like spokes from the hub of a wheel. On the opposite side of this foul disc were the beginnings of three other tentacles that were still under the rock. From the middle of the viscous mass two eyes looked out. They were looking at Gilliatt.

  Gilliatt recognized the devilfish.199

  II

  THE MONSTER

  To believe in the existence of the devilfish, you must have seen one. Compared with the devilfish, the hydras of old bring a smile to the lips.

  At some moments we may be tempted to believe that the intangible forms that haunt our dreams encounter, in the world of the possible, magnets on which their lineaments are caught, and that these obscure dream images become living creatures. The Unknown has the power to produce marvels, and uses it to create monsters. Orpheus, Hesiod, and Homer could create only the chimera; God has created the devilfish.

  When God so wills it, He excels in the creation of the execrable. Why He should have such a will is a question that troubles religious thinkers.

  All ideals being admitted as valid, if causing terror is an objective, then the devilfish is a masterpiece. The whale is enormous, the devilfish is small; the hippopotamus is armor-plated, the devilfish is naked; the jararaca200 has a whistling call, the devilfish is mute; the rhinoceros has a horn, the devilfish has none; the scorpion has a sting, the devilfish has none; the buthus201 has pincers, the devilfish has none; the howler monkey has a prehensile tail, the devilfish has no tail; the shark has sharp-edged fins, the devilfish has no fins; the vampire bat has clawed wings, the devilfish has no wings; the hedgehog has spines, the devilfish has none; the swordfish has a sword, the devilfish has none; the torpedo fish emits an electric discharge, the devilfish emits nothing; the toad has a virus, the devilfish has none; the viper has poison, the devilfish has none; the lion has claws, the devilfish has none; the lammergeyer has a beak, the devilfish has none; the crocodile has jaws, the devilfish has no teeth.

  The devilfish has no mass of muscle, no threatening cry, no armor, no horn, no sting, no pincers, no tail to seize or batter its enemies, no sharp-edged fins, no clawed fins, no spines, no sword, no electric discharge, no virus, no poison, no claws, no beak, no teeth. And yet of all animals the devilfish is the one that is most formidably armed.

  What, then, is the devilfish? It is a suction pad.

  On reefs in the open sea, where the water displays and conceals all its splendors, in hollows among unvisited rocks, in unknown caverns with an abundance of vegetation, crustaceans, and shellfish, under the deep portals of the ocean, a swimmer who ventures in, attracted by the beauty of the scene, runs the risk of an encounter. If you have such an encounter, do not give way to curiosity but make your escape at once. Those who enter there bedazzled emerge terrified.

  This is the encounter that you may have at any time among rocks in the open sea. A grayish form the thickness of a man's arm and about half an ell202 long can be seen quivering in the water. It looks like a rag of cloth, like a rolled-up umbrella without a handle. This rag gradually draws closer to you. Suddenly it opens up, and eight rays dart out around a face containing two eyes. These rays are alive; undulating, they flash like fire. It is like a wheel; fully deployed, it has a diameter of four or five feet: a terrifying expansion. Then it launches itself at you. It is a case of a hydra harpooning a man.

  The creature curls itself around its prey, covering it and knotting its long tentacles around it. Its underside is yellowish, its upper side earth-colored. It is impossible to render this color, the hue of dust; this sea creature looks as if it were made of ashes. It is spiderlike in form and chameleon-like in coloring. When disturbed it becomes purple. And, horrifyingly, it is soft and yielding.

  The knots it ties strangle its prey, which is paralyzed by its very contact.

  It has something of the aspect of scurvy and of gangrene. It is disease shaped into a monstrosity.

  It cannot be shaken off; it clings firmly to its prey. How does it do this? By the power of a vacuum. The eight antennae are broad at the root but taper to a sharp point. On their undersides are two parallel rows of pustules, decreasing in size from the base to the point. There are twenty-five in each row; thus there are fifty on each antenna, and a total of four hundred in all.

  These pustules are suckers: cartilaginous substances, cylindrical in shape, horny, pallid in color. In the largest species they range in size from a five-franc piece to a split pea. These short tubes can be thrust out and withdrawn at will. They ca
n penetrate their prey to a depth of over an inch.

  This suction apparatus has all the delicacy of a keyboard. It rises up and then disappears. It obeys the creature's least intention. The most exquisite sensibility cannot match the contractility of these suckers, which are always proportioned to the internal movements of the creature and to circumstances outside it. This dragon is a sensitive plant.

  This monster is the creature that seamen call the octopus, scientists call a cephalopod, and which in legend is known as a kraken. English sailors call it the devilfish or the bloodsucker. In the Channel Islands it is called the pieuvre. It is rarely found on Guernsey; it is quite small on Jersey, and of great size and fairly common on Sark.

  A print in Sonnini's edition of Buffon depicts a cephalopod grappling a frigate; and Denys Montfort believes that the octopus found in high latitudes is capable of sinking a ship. Bory de Saint-Vincent doubts this, but notes that in our waters it will attack a man. If you go to Sark they will show you, near Brecqhou, a hollow in the rocks where some years ago an octopus seized, held on to, and drowned a lobster fisher. Peron and Lamarck 203 are in error in their belief that an octopus, having no fins, cannot swim. The writer of these lines has seen with his own eyes, in the sea cave on Sark known as the Boutiques, an octopus swimming in pursuit of a bather. It was killed and when measured was found to be four English feet across. Its four hundred suckers could be counted; they were thrust out of the creature's arms in the convulsions of its death agony.

  According to Denys Montfort, one of these observers whose powerful intuition leads him to descend, or to ascend, into Magism, the octopus has almost human passions: it can hate. And indeed, in the absolute, to be hideous is to hate.

  Misshapen creatures struggle under a necessity of elimination that makes them hostile. When swimming the octopus stays, as it were, within its sheath. It swims with all its parts tucked up under it. It resembles a sleeve containing a closed fist. This fist, which is the head, cleaves through the water and advances with a vague undulating movement. Its two eyes, though large, are difficult to distinguish, being of the same color as the water.