As he embraced his parents before going to sleep on board for the first time he said:
“You will come to say good-bye to me on board, will you not?”
Roland exclaimed:
“Why, yes, of course—of course, Louise?”
“Certainly, certainly,” she said in a low voice.
Pierre went on:
“We sail at eleven precisely.
You must be there by half-past nine at the latest.”
“Hah!” cried his father. “A good idea!
As soon as we have bid you good-bye, we will make haste on board the Pearl, and look out for you beyond the jetty, so as to see you once more.
What do you say, Louise?”
“Certainly.”
Roland went on:
“And in that way you will not lose sight of us among the crowd which throngs the breakwater when the great liners sail. It is impossible to distinguish your own friends in the mob.
Does that meet your views?”
“Yes, to be sure; that is settled.”
An hour later he was lying in his berth—a little crib as long and narrow as a coffin.
There he remained with his eyes wide open for a long time, thinking over all that had happened during the last two months of his life, especially in his own soul.
By dint of suffering and making others suffer, his aggressive and revengeful anguish had lost its edge, like a blunted sword.
He scarcely had the heart left in him to owe any one or anything a grudge; he let his rebellious wrath float away down stream, as his life must.
He was so weary of wrestling, weary of fighting, weary of hating, weary of everything, that he was quite worn out, and tried to stupefy his heart with forgetfulness as he dropped asleep.
He heard vaguely, all about him, the unwonted noises of the ship, slight noises, and scarcely audible on this calm night in port; and he felt no more of the dreadful wound which had tortured him hitherto, but the discomfort and strain of its healing.
He had been sleeping soundly when the stir of the crew roused him.
It was day; the tidal train had come down to the pier bringing the passengers from Paris.
Then he wandered about the vessel among all these busy, bustling folks inquiring for their cabins, questioning and answering each other at random, in the scare and fuss of a voyage already begun.
After greeting the Captain and shaking hands with his comrade the purser, he went into the saloon where some Englishmen were already asleep in the corners.
The large low room, with its white marble panels framed in gilt beading, was furnished with looking-glasses, which prolonged, in endless perspective, the long tables, flanked by pivot-seats covered with red velvet.
It was fit, indeed, to be the vast floating cosmopolitan dining-hall, where the rich natives of two continents might eat in common.
Its magnificent luxury was that of great hotels, and theatres, and public rooms; the imposing and commonplace luxury which appeals to the eye of the millionaire.
The doctor was on the point of turning into the second-class saloon, when he remembered that a large cargo of emigrants had come on board the night before, and he went down to the lower deck.
He was met by a sickening smell of dirty, poverty-stricken humanity, an atmosphere of naked flesh (far more revolting than the odour of fur or the skin of wild beasts).
There, in a sort of basement, low and dark, like a gallery in a mine, Pierre could discern some hundreds of men, women, and children, stretched on shelves fixed one above another, or lying on the floor in heaps.
He could not see their faces, but could dimly make out this squalid, ragged crowd of wretches, beaten in the struggle for life, worn out and crushed, setting forth, each with a starving wife and weakly children, for an unknown land where they hoped, perhaps, not to die of hunger.
And as he thought of their past labour—wasted labour, and barren effort—of the mortal struggle taken up afresh and in vain each day, of the energy expended by this tattered crew who were going to begin again, not knowing where, this life of hideous misery, he longed to cry out to them:
“Tumble yourselves overboard, rather, with your women and your little ones.”
And his heart ached so with pity that he went away unable to endure the sight.
He found his father, his mother, Jean, and Mme. Rosemilly waiting for him in his cabin.
“So early!” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” said Mme. Roland in a trembling voice. “We wanted to have a little time to see you.”
He looked at her.
She was dressed all in black as if she were in mourning, and he noticed that her hair, which only a month ago had been gray, was now almost white.
It was very difficult to find space for four persons to sit down in the little room, and he himself got on to his bed.
The door was left open, and they could see a great crowd hurrying by, as if it were a street on a holiday, for all the friends of the passengers and a host of inquisitive visitors had invaded the huge vessel.
They pervaded the passages, the saloons, every corner of the ship; and heads peered in at the doorway while a voice murmured outside:
“That is the doctor’s cabin.”
Then Pierre shut the door; but no sooner was he shut in with his own party than he longed to open it again, for the bustle outside covered their agitation and want of words.
Mme. Rosemilly at last felt she must speak.
“Very little air comes in through those little windows.”
“Port-holes,” said Pierre.
He showed her how thick the glass was, to enable it to resist the most violent shocks, and took a long time explaining the fastening.