He tries to save himself, to keep himself up; he strikes out, he swims. He, this pitiful force, at once exhausted, is matched against the inexhaustible.
Where is the ship now? Way down there, barely visible in the pale obscurity of the horizon. The squalls hum about him, the wave-crests wash over him. He raises his eyes, and sees only the lividness of the clouds. In his death struggle he takes part in the madness of the sea. He is tortured by this madness. He hears sounds, strange to man, which seem to come from beyond the earth, and from some terrible world outside.
There are birds in the clouds, just as there are angels above human griefs, but what can they do for him? There is one, flying, singing, and hovering, while he has the death-rattle in his throat.
He feels himself buried at the same time by these two Infinites, the ocean and the heavens; the one a tomb, the other a shroud.
Night falls; he has been swimming now for hours; his strength has reached its end; this ship, this far-off thing where there were men, is blotted from his sight; he is alone in the fearful gulf of twilight; he sinks, he braces himself, he writhes, he feels below him the roving monsters of the invisible. He cries aloud.
"There are no longer any men here." "Where is God?"
He calls "Somebody!" "Somebody!" He keeps on calling.
Nothing on the horizon; nothing in heaven.
He implores the waste of waters, the wave, the seaweed, the rock; it is deaf. He supplicates the tempest; the pitiless tempest obeys only the Infinite.
Around him is darkness, mist, solitude, the stormy and unreasoning tumult, the boundless rolling of the wild waters. In him is horror and weariness. Under him the abyss. There is nothing to rest on. He thinks of what will happen to his body in the boundless shades. The infinite cold benumbs him. His hands shrivel; they clutch and find nothing. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, puffs, useless stars. What is he to do? In despair, he gives up. Worn out as he is, he makes up his mind to die, he abandons himself, he lets himself go, he relaxes himself, and there he is rolling forever into the dismal depths in which he is swallowed up.