There was a slight wind; but then we wanted some wind, Eilert said, as long as there was not too much of it.
"Not reliable tonight though," he said, looking up into the sky; "the bigger the wind, the stronger the current."
At first I was very brave, and sat on the thwart thinking of Eilert's French words: travali, prekevary, sutinary, mankémang, and many others. They've had a long way to travel, coming here by ancient routes via Bergen, and now they're common property.
And then suddenly I lost all interest in French words, and felt extremely ill. It was much too windy, and we got no haddock.
"Pity she's come up so quick," said Eilert; "let's try inshore for a while."
But we got nothing there either, and as the wind increased and the sea rose, "We'd better go home," said Eilert.
The sea had been just right before, remarkably so, but now there was entirely too much of it. Why on earth did I feel so bad? An inner exhaustion, some emotional excitement, would have explained it. But I had experienced no emotional excitement.
We rowed in the foam and feathery jets of spray. "She's rising fast!" cried Eilert, rowing with all his might.
I felt so wretched that Eilert told me to ship my oars; he would manage by himself. But for all my wretchedness, I remembered that they could see me from the shore, and I would not put down my oars. Eilert's wife might see me and laugh at me.
What a revolting business, this seasickness that forced me to put my head over the gunwale and make a pig of myself! I had a moment's relief, and then it began all over again. Charming! I felt as though I were in labor; the wrong way up, of course, through my throat, but it was a delivery nonetheless. It moved up, then stopped, came on again and stopped, came on and stopped once more. It was a lump of iron--iron, did I say? No, steel; I had never felt anything like it before; it was not something I was born with. All my internal mechanism was stopped by it. Then I took a running start far down inside me and began, strangely, to howl with all my strength; but a howl, however successful, cannot break down a lump of steel. The pains continued. My mouth filled with bile. Soon, thank heaven, my chest would burst. O--oh--oh.... Then we rowed inside the islands that served as a breakwater, and I was saved.