Mare Nostrum (Our Sea). Vicente Blasco Ibanez
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edifices from their bases and had overturned entire trains in the nearby station. Furthermore, on the other side of the promontory began the terrible Gulf of Lyons. Upon its surface, not more than ninety yards in extent, the waters driven by the strong sea winds often became so rough, and raised up waves so high and so solid that upon clashing together and finding no intermediate space upon which to fall, they piled one upon another, forming regular towers.
This gulf was the most terrible of the Mediterranean. The transatlantic liners returning from a good voyage to the other hemisphere used here to tremble with a pre-monition of danger and sometimes even turned back. The captains who had just crossed the great Atlantic would here furrow their brows with uneasiness.
From the door of the Athenaeum the experts used to point out the Latin sailboats that were about to double the promontory. They were merchant vessels such as that elder Ferragut had commanded, embarkations from Valencia that were bringing wine to Cette and fruits to Marseilles. Upon seeing the blue surface of the Gulf on the other side of the Cape with no other roughness than that of a long and infinitely heavy swell, the Valencians would exclaim happily:
"Let us cross quickly, while the lion sleeps."
Ulysses had one friend, the secretary of the city-hall, and the only inhabitant that had any books in his house. Treated by the rich with a certain contempt, the official used to seek the boy's company because he was the only creature who would listen to him attentively.
He adored the mare nostrum as much as Doctor Ferragut, but his enthusiasm was not concerned with the Phoenician and Egyptian ships whose keels had first plowed these waves. He was equally indifferent to Grecian and Carthaginian Triremes, Roman warships, and the monstrous galleys of the Sicilian tyrants—palaces moved by oars, with statues, fountains and gardens. That which most interested him was the Mediterranean of the Middle Ages, that of the kings of Aragon, the Catalunian Sea. And the poor secretary would give long daily dissertations about them in order to pique the local pride of his juvenile listener.
One day after dilating at length on Roger de Lauria and the Catalan navy, he wound up his tedious history by telling the little fellow how Alfonso V, his brother the King of Navarre, and all his cortege of magnates, had remained prisoners of the Republic of Genoa, which, terrified by the importance of its royal prey, had entrusted the captives to the guard of the Duke of Milan. … But the monarchs easily came to an understanding in order to deceive the democratic governments, and the Milanese sovereign released the King of Aragon with all his suite. Thereupon he immediately blockaded Genoa with an enormous fleet. The Provençal navy came promptly to the relief of its neighbors, and the Aragonese King forced the port of Marseilles, bearing away as trophy the chains that closed its entrance.
Ulysses nodded affirmatively. The sailor king had deposited these chains in the cathedral of Valencia. His godfather, the poet, had pointed them out to him in a Gothic chapel, forming a garland of iron over the black hewn stones.
The Catalan navy still continued to dominate the Mediterranean commercially, adding to its ancient vessels great galleons, lighter galleys, caravels, cattle boats, and other ships of the period.
"But Christopher Columbus," concluded the Catalan sadly, "discovered the Indies, thereby giving a death blow to the maritime riches of the Mediterranean. Besides, Aragon and Castile became united and their life and power were then concentrated in the center of the Peninsula, far from the sea."
Had Barcelona been the capital of Spain, Catalunia would have preserved the Mediterranean domination. Had Lisbon been the capital, the Spanish colonial realm would have developed into something organic and solid with a robust life. But what could you expect of a nation which had stuck its head into a pillow of yellow interior steppes, the furthest possible from the world's highways, showing only its feet to the waves! …
The Catalan would always end by speaking sadly of the decadence of the Mediterranean marine. Everything that was pleasing to his tastes made him hark back to the good old time of the domination of the Mediterranean by the Catalan marine. One day he offered Ulysses a sweet and perfumed wine.
"It is Malvasian, the first stock the Almogavars brought here from
Greece."
Then he said in order to flatter the boy:
"It was a citizen of Valencia, Ramon Muntaner, who wrote of the expeditions of the Catalans and Aragonese against Constantinople."
The mere recollection of this novel-like adventure, the most unheard-of in history, used to fill him with enthusiasm, and, in passing, he paid highest tribute to the Almogavar chronicler, a rude Homer in song, Ulysses and Nestor in council, and Achilles in hard action.
Doña Cristina's impatience to rejoin her husband and to return to the comforts of her well-regulated household finally carried Ulysses away from this life by the coast.
For many years thereafter he saw no other sea than the Gulf of Valencia. The notary, under various pretexts, contrived to prevent the doctor's again carrying off his nephew; and the Triton made his trips to Valencia less frequently, rebelling against all the inconveniences and dangers of these terrestrial adventures.
And Labarta, when occupied with the future of Ulysses, used to take on a certain air of a good-natured regent charged with the guardianship of a little prince. The boy appeared to belong to them more than to his own father; his studies and his future destiny filled completely their after-dinner conversations when the doctor was in town.
Don Esteban felt a certain satisfaction in annoying his brother by eulogizing the sedentary and prosperous life.
Over there on the coasts of Catalunia lived his brothers-in-law, the Blanes, genuine wolves of the sea. The doctor would not be able to contradict that. Very well, then—their sons were in Barcelona, some as business clerks, others making a name for themselves in the office of their rich uncle. They were all sailors' sons and yet they had completely freed themselves from the sea. Their business was entirely on terra firma. Only crazyheads could think of ships and adventures.
The Triton used to smile humbly before such pointed allusions, and exchange glances with his nephew.
A secret existed between the two. Ulysses, who was finishing his studies for a bachelor's degree, was at the same time taking the courses of pilotage at the institute. Two years would be sufficient for the completion of these latter studies. The uncle had provided the matriculation fees and the books, besides recommending the boy to a former sailor comrade.
CHAPTER III
PATER OCEANUS
When Don Esteban died very suddenly, his eighteen-year-old son was still studying in the university.
In his latter days the notary had begun to suspect that Ulysses was not going to be the celebrated jurist that he had dreamed. He had a way of cutting classes in order to pass the morning in the harbor, exercising with the oars. If he entered the university, the beadles were on their guard fearing his long-reaching hands: for he already fancied himself a sailor and liked to imitate the men of the sea who, accustomed to contend with the elements, considered a quarrel with a man as a very slight affair. Alternating violently between study and laziness, he was laboriously approaching the end of his course when neuralgia of the heart carried off the notary.
Upon coming out from the stupefaction of her grief, Doña Cristina looked around her with aversion. Why should she linger on in Valencia? Since she could no longer be with the man who had brought her to this country, she wanted to return to her own people. The poet Labarta would look after her properties that were not so valuable nor numerous as the income of the notary had led them to suppose. Don Esteban had suffered great losses in extravagant business speculations good-naturedly accepted, but there was still left a fortune sufficient to enable his wife to live as an independent widow among her relatives in Barcelona.
In arranging