Then my mind returned to Rosa. What would she say, what would she feel, when she learnt that I had been drowned in the Channel? Would she experience a grief merely platonic, or had she indeed a profounder feeling towards me? Drowned! Who said drowned? There were the boats, if they could be launched, and, moreover, I could swim. I considered what I should do at the moment the ship foundered—for I still felt she would founder. I was the blackest of pessimists. I said to myself that I would spring as far as I could into the sea, not only to avoid the sucking in of the vessel, but to get clear of the other passengers.
Suppose that a passenger who could not swim should by any chance seize me in the water, how should I act? This was a conundrum. I could not save another and myself, too. I said I would leave that delicate point till the time came, but in my heart I knew that I should beat off such a person with all the savagery of despair—unless it happened to be a woman. I felt that I could not repulse a drowning woman, even if to help her for a few minutes meant death for both of us.
How insignificant seemed everything else—everything outside the ship and the sea and our perilous plight! The death of Alresca, the jealousy of Carlotta Deschamps, the plot (if there was one) against Rosa—what were these matters to me? But Rosa was something. She was more than something; she was all. A lovely, tantalizing vision of her appeared to float before my eyes.
I peered over the port rail to see whether we were in fact gradually sinking. The heaving water looked a long way off, and the idea of this raised my spirits for an instant. But only for an instant. The apparent inactivity of those in charge annoyed while it saddened me. They were not even sending up rockets now, nor burning Bengal lights. I had no patience left to ask more questions. A mood of disgust seized me. If the captain himself had stood by my side waiting to reply to requests for information, I doubt if I should have spoken. I felt like the spectator who is compelled to witness a tragedy which both wounds and bores him. I was obsessed by my own ill-luck and the stupidity of the rest of mankind. I was particularly annoyed by the spasmodic hymn-singing that went on in various parts of the deck.
The man who had burst into the saloon shouting "Where is my wife?" reappeared from somewhere, and standing near to me started to undress hastily. I watched him. He had taken off his coat, waistcoat, and boots, when a quiet, amused voice said: "I shouldn't do that if I were you. It's rather chilly, you know. Besides, think of the ladies."
Without a word he began with equal celerity to reassume his clothes. I turned to the speaker. It was the youth who had dragged the girl away from me when I first came up on deck. She was on his arm, and had a rug over her head. Both were perfectly self-possessed. The serenity of the young man's face particularly struck me. I was not to be out-done.
"Have a cigarette?" I said.
"Thanks."
"Do you happen to know what all this business is?" I asked him.
"It's a collision," he said. "We were struck on the port paddle-box. That saved us for the moment."