Ferragut passed many mornings contemplating their treacherous immovability, followed by deadly unfoldings the moment that their prey came down into the tank. He began to hate these monsters for no other reason than because they were so interesting to Freya. Their stupid cruelty appeared to him but a reflex of that incomprehensible woman's character that was repulsing him by fleeing from him and yet, at the same time, by her smiles and her signals, was sending out a wireless in order to keep him prisoner.
Masculine wrath convulsed the sailor after each futile daily trip in pursuit of her invisible personality.
"She's just doing it to lead me on!…" he exclaimed. "It's got to come to an end! I won't stand any more bull-baiting…. I'll just show her that I'm able to live without her!"
He swore not to seek her any more. It was an agreeable diversion for the weeks that he had to spend in Naples, but why keep it up when she was fatiguing him in such an insufferable way?…
"All is ended," he said again, clenching his hands.
And the following day he was waiting outside of the hotel just as on other days. Then he would go for his customary stroll, afterwards entering the Aquarium in the same, old hope of seeing her before the tanks of the cuttlefish.
He finally met her there one morning, about midday. He had been over to his boat and on returning entered, through force of habit, sure that at this hour he would find nobody but the employees feeding the fishes.
His dazzled eyes were affected with almost instantaneous blindness before becoming accustomed to the shadows of the greenish galleries…. And when the first images began to be vaguely outlined on his retina, he stepped hastily backward, so great was his surprise.
He couldn't believe it and raised his hand to his eyes as though wishing to clarify his vision with an energetic rubbing. Was that really Freya?… Yes, it was she, dressed in white, leaning on the bar of iron that separated the tanks from the public, looking fixedly at the glass which covered the rocky cavern like a transparent door. She had just opened her hand-bag, giving some coins to the guardian who was disappearing at the end of the gallery.
"Oh, is that you?" she said, on seeing Ferragut, without any surprise, as if she had left him but a short time before.