Here we are in the strait of Dukato, between Saint Maure and Cephalonia. It is a splendid boulevard. To the right, Ithaca, Ulysses’ native land, lies reddish brown under the sun; to the left, lie jewels of rocks and liquid paths more delicate and beautiful than remote trails in the depths of woods; before us a cluster of islands with names from the musical language of the rhapsodists—Arkudi, Meganisi, Astoko. And like a highly polished tapestry, the marvelous mountains tower above the water, blue and crowned with light. The sea has the hue of mother-of-pearl; the sky is pale, the islands are veiled in faint color; the gods have composed these tints, outlines and places into a perfect fairyland.
Space seems to have a divine soul, of unknown substance. The eyes are ravished, the blood exhilarated. When Homer sang the return of Ulysses, the Ionian gods gave him a flexible and sonorous language. That secret the men of our times have lost, they must pause feebly on the threshold of the inexpressible. Surely Ionia was the garden of the gods.
The cruiser, slender and swift, glides between these historic shores, which have seen the barques of the Achæans, the triremes of Rome, the Venetian galleys, the ships of the Crusaders and the feluccas of Barbary. In our wake have passed generations of pilots, who came from regions where the sea is evil, and who laughed with delight in this sailors’ paradise. Why should they not all—poets or merchants, pirates or soldiers—celebrate these delights and long to remain here? Blundering through schoolbooks, I have hated the very name of Ithaca; I have cursed Olympia—when it was assembled in a detestable book. Since then I have seen all the most perfect skies; my eyes have exhausted the miracle of light. And yet it is here that I place the cradle of the gods. When the fancy came to them to descend to earth, where else should they have lighted but on majestic islet, like Juno on a steep bank made by Vulcan? Was it not in this fair atmosphere that Apollo shook out his radiant locks?
And is it not this sea that gave birth to Venus? How happy he would be who could catch the secret of the outline and color play on this sea? Her fish are more beautiful in tint and form than the loveliest animals. Her plants have a rich metallic luster, with lines and curves that no land plants approach. The men who frequent her, the cities she laves, are fortunate. All beauty comes from the sea; every vital germ has floated in her depths. And the subtle intuition of the race of Homer, who gave divine form to symbols, made the goddess of life and beauty spring from the Ionian waves.
Aphrodite! Triumphant, naked, I see you emerging from the transparent blue sea: you stretch your soft limbs under the caress of light. You open your enchanted eyes upon an earth where men, harassed by the ugliness of their souls and the futility of their labors, stretch their hands madly toward your eternal beauty! You go to meet them. It was here you made your first appearance on our earth. Blessed be the Greeks, your sponsors, who chose this cradle for you!
And at this moment, when yonder on the field of murder the German ruffians are trying to destroy everything that is beautiful, everything to which you have given birth, I understand more clearly the patrimony which the French are called upon to defend. O Aphrodite, you extend across the ages your protection to France, your child. From this spot have come that clear thought, that delicate feeling, that fertile vision, which you loved in the people who nourished you. As a humble defender of that beauty, born of the bridal of sea and sun, a Frenchman thanks you for what you have given him, for all that which is now in danger of destruction; he salutes you in passing, Ionian Aphrodite, and wishes he could see the very circle of gold where the Greeks have placed your birth.
Do not think it is the force of antique memory alone that has produced this adoration of mine. From the bridge where I am carefully guiding the cruiser through the windings Ulysses loved, I see on deck a thousand sailors, silent and attentive. They have stopped talking and laughing, and no longer turn their backs to the too familiar sea. To-day a great silence hovers over these Bretons, these Flemings and Provençals. In what naive way are they absorbing the beauty before their eyes? They are not acquainted with the poetry and the prose which have endowed me with this ancient heritage. There they are, however, with wide eyes, lost in admiration. Beauty could not be celebrated more significantly than in this stupor of theirs. Their souls, I imagine, imprisoned in dark dungeons, unconsciously regret the speed of our passage. Their emotions are profounder than mine; theirs rise from depths where are no words to translate the mystery. When you do not understand a thing, you discuss it; but you are silent when it is revealed. All the sailors are silent. Beauty has just made itself one of their souls’ memories.
At sea off the Peloponnesus, 2 December.
After so many weeks of cruising, without contact with the world, we had hoped to enjoy a few days of rest at Malta, a favor which the Commander-in-Chief grants to weary ships. We cherished the illusion that he had had us come so that he might deliver his communications to us and send us quickly on our mission. But in the navy one must never hope unless one wishes to be deceived. Hardly had we arrived at the anchorage of Arkudi when the Waldeck-Rousseau was charged with an urgent mission on the other side of the Balkan peninsula, to Saloniki. Regretfully she takes the southern route, winds around Greece and the Peloponnesus, turns towards the north, and through the mazes of the Ægean Sea seeks the road to Thessaly.
Our faces and eyes begin to show their weariness. It is not without betraying the strain that the stokers before their furnaces, the engineers before their pistons, the gunner lookouts before their guns, have lived this interminable length of days and nights, alternating between heavy labor and broken rest. The air between decks becomes heavier and more stifling with each passing day; dust and heat lie over everything, and one is as weary after a heavy sleep as at night on a railroad train with all the windows closed.