“It was one of those melancholy days that oppress and crush the mind, weigh on the heart, and deaden in us all strength and energy; a grey bitter day, darkened by a thick fog, as wet as rain, as cold as ice, and as unhealthy to breathe as a whiff from the sewers.
“Under this roof of low-hanging, sinister haze, the yellow sea, the shallow sandy sea of these endless beaches, lay without a ripple, motionless, lifeless, a sea of discoloured, oily, stagnant water. The Jean-Guiton drove forward, rolling a little, as she always did; she cut through the sleek cloudy surface, leaving behind her a few waves, a brief heaving of the water, a slight rippling that shortly died away.
“I began to talk to the captain, a short, almost limbless man, as tubby as his ship and with just such a rolling gait. I wanted to gather some details of the loss that I was going to examine. A big square-built three-master of St. Nazaire, the Marie-Joseph, had run aground during a wild night, on the sandy shore of the island of Ré.
“The owner wrote that the storm had flung the vessel so high up that it had been impossible to refloat her, and that it would be necessary to get everything off her that could be got off. It was my duty to examine the situation of the wreck, to form an opinion as to what must have been her condition before the disaster, and to judge whether every effort had been made to get her off. I had come as the Company’s agent, to be a witness for the defence, if need be, in the legal inquiry.
“On receiving my report, the director had to take such measures as he judged necessary to protect our interests.
“The captain of the Jean-Guiton knew all the details of the affair, having been summoned to help, with his boat, in the attempts at salvage.
“He told me the story of the loss, a perfectly simple story. The Marie-Joseph, running before a furious gale, lost in the darkness, steering as best she could through a foaming sea—‘a milk-soup sea,’ the captain called it—had run aground on the vast sandbanks which at low tide turn the coasts of these parts into endless Saharas.
“As I talked, I looked round me and in front of me. Between the sea and the louring sky was a clear space that gave a good view ahead. We were hugging a coast.
“ ‘Is this the island of Ré?’ I asked.
“ ‘Yes, sir.’
“And all at once the captain stretched his right hand in front of us and showed me an almost indistinguishable object lying right out at sea.
“ ‘Look, there’s your ship,’ he said.
“ ‘The Marie-Joseph?’
“ ‘Yes, that’s her.’
“I was astounded. This almost invisible object, which I had taken for a reef, seemed to me to lie at least three kilometres from land.
“ ‘But, Captain,’ I answered, ‘there must be a hundred fathoms of water at the place you’re pointing out.’
“He burst out laughing.
“ ‘A hundred fathoms, my friend! … There aren’t two, I tell you.’
“He was from Bordeaux. He went on:
“ ‘It will be high tide at twenty minutes to ten. You go out on the shore, your hands in your pockets, after you’ve launched at the Dauphin, and I promise you that at ten to three, or three at the latest, you’ll be able to walk dryfoot to the wreck, my friend, and you’ll have an hour and three-quarters to two hours to stay on board, not more, mind: you’d be caught by the tide. The farther out the sea goes, the faster it comes in. This coast is as flat as a louse. Mark my words and start back at ten to five; at half past seven you come on board the Jean-Guiton, which will land you this same evening on the quay at La Rochelle.’
“I thanked the captain, and I went and sat down in the bows of the tug to look at the little town of Saint-Martin with which we were rapidly coming up.
“It was like all the miniature ports that serve as chief towns to every barren little island lying off the coasts of continents. It was a large fishing-village, one foot in the sea, one foot on land, living on fish and poultry, vegetables and cockles, turnips and mussels. The island is very low-lying, and sparsely cultivated; it seems to be thickly peopled none the less, but I did not penetrate inland.
“After lunch, I crossed a little headland; then, as the tide was rapidly going out, I walked across the sands to a sort of black rock which I could see above the water, far, far away.
“I walked quickly on this yellow plain, which had the resilience of living flesh and seemed to sweat under my feet. A moment ago the sea had been there; now I saw it slipping out of sight in the distance, and I could no longer distinguish the verge that separated sand and sea. I felt that I was watching a gigantic and supernatural transformation scene. One moment the Atlantic was in front of me, and then it had disappeared in the shore, as stage scenery disappears through trapdoors, and now I was walking through a desert. Only the scent and the breath of the salt sea was still round me. I caught the smell of seaweed, the smell of salt water, the sharp healthy smell of the land. I walked quickly: I was no longer cold; I looked at the stranded wreck which grew larger as I approached and now looked like a huge stranded whale.
“She seemed to spring from the ground, and in this vast flat yellow plain she assumed surprising
