You feel reassured. You say to yourself: "Well, this time, at all events, we shall have a good passage;" and you cheerily pace the deck, light of heart and firm of foot, convinced that if anyone is ill, it will not be you.
The illusion is a sweet, but short-lived one.
The whistle sounds, the boat is set in motion, and gently and smoothly glides to the mouth of the harbor.
Everyone seems in the best of spirits, people chatter in groups, and handkerchiefs are waved to the friends who have come down to the quay to see you off.
The end of the pier is passed. There you are—now for it. You have hardly rounded the projection which would be for you a little Cape of Good Hope, if you were only arriving instead of departing, when the horrible construction heaves heavily forward, and then seems to sink away from under your feet, making you feel as if it were about to leave you in mid-air, and trust to your intelligence to catch it again. You would fain make your escape without delay; but everybody is there, so you hold on and look around. Little by little the faces grow serious; they begin to pale and lengthen visibly; the groups melt and gradually disperse. Everyone finds a pretext for going below and hiding his shame.
"I am not generally ill on the water," you remark to your neighbor; "but to-day, I don't know why, I am not feeling quite up to the mark; I must have eaten something at luncheon that does not agree with me.... Oh! of course, it's that wretched lobster salad! I was cautioned not to touch it, too. Oh! la gourmandise!" Confident of having persuaded your traveling companion that you are a tolerably good sailor, you too disappear below ... and he, not sorry to see you go, is not long in following your example.
You go down to the cabin. Alas! that is the finishing touch. The stuffy, heavy, unwholesome atmosphere, charged with a mixed odor of tar, mysterious cookery, and troubled stomachs, brings your digestive apparatus up to your throat. You feel stifled. All the vital forces crowd to your head, and your legs are powerless to support you. You throw yourself on your berth like a log, and instinctively close your eyes, so as not to see that man over there, who is just about to open the ball, or that other who is looking at you with a mixture of amusement and pity, as he calmly eats his chop. This creature is the most annoying of all your fellow-passengers. His compassion for you is insulting. You hate his healthy-looking face, his calm, his good appetite even; and your indignation reaches its climax when you see him coolly filling his pipe and preparing to go on deck and smoke. Unable to endure the atmosphere of the saloon any longer, you make a grand effort and return to the upper regions. The first sight that meets your eyes is that man again, now lavishing the most careful attentions upon your wife; he has been to fetch her some brandy and water, or a cup of tea. You would thank him, but you do not care for your wife to see you in your pitiful condition. That fellow is unbearable, overpowering. This is the only reflection suggested by his kindness to your wife; and away you steer, making a semicircle, or rather two or three, on your way to an empty bench, where you once more assume the horizontal.
A friend comes to tell you that your wife is giving up the ghost somewhere in the stern of the ship, but you make believe not to hear, and only murmur through your teeth: "So am I; what can I do for her?"
You ask the steward to send you some tea, and it comes up in an earthenware basin an inch thick. You put it to your lips. Horrible! What can it possibly be made of, this nauseating decoction? The smell of the flat, unpalatable stuff makes you feel more qualmish than ever; the remedy is worse than the evil.
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