But no, there was nothing; he had descended in peace into the depths below.
An infinite descent, first rapid as in a fall; then slow, slow, petering out little by little in the ever-increasing density of the deeper waters. A mysterious journey of many leagues into unplumbed abysms; during which the darkened sun shows first like a pale moon, then turns green, then trembles, and finally is effaced. And then the eternal darkness begins; the waters rise, rise, gathering over the head of the dead traveller like the waters of a deluge which should reach up to the stars.
But, below, the dead body has lost its loathsomeness; matter is never unclean in an absolute sense. In the darkness the invisible animals of the deep waters will come and encompass it; the mysterious madrepores will put forth upon it their branches, eating it very slowly with the thousand little mouths of their living flowers.
This grave of sailors cannot be violated by any human hand. He who has descended to sleep below is more dead than any other dead man; nothing of him will ever appear again; never will he mingle with that old dust of men which, on the surface of the earth, is for ever seeking to recombine in an eternal effort to live again. He belongs to the life of the world below; he is going to pass into plants of colourless stone, into sluggish animals which are without shape and without eyes. . . .
[CHAPTER XCI]
On the evening of the burial of Barazère, Yves had brought his friend Jean Barrada with him to my room. They were now the only survivors of the old band: Kerboul, Le Hello, had been sleeping for many a long day at the bottom of the sea, to which they too had descended in the fullness of youth; the others had left to join the merchant service, or had returned to their villages: all were scattered.
Yves and Barrada were very old friends. On shore, when they were together, it was not good to cross them in their whims.
I can still see the two of them sitting there before me, sharing the same chair on account of the limited space of the room, holding on with one hand in the habit learnt from the rolling of the ship, and looking at me with attentive eyes. For I was endeavouring to prove to them on this evening that it was not with men as with beasts, and to speak to them of the mysterious beyond. . . . And they, with Barazère's death fresh in their memory, were listening to me surprised, fascinated, in the midst of that very special peacefulness of calm evenings at sea, a peacefulness which predisposes to the comprehension of the incomprehensible.
Old arguments repeated over and over again at school which I developed to them and which it seemed to me might still make an impression on their young minds. . . . It was perhaps very stupid, this discourse on immortality; but it did them no harm; on the contrary.