that girl, and the utmost that can be said for him was that he wanted
that particular girl alone. I think I saw then the obscure beginning,
the seed germinating in the soil of an unconscious need, the first shoot
of that tree bearing now for a mature mankind the flower and the fruit,
the infinite gradation in shades and in flavour of our discriminating
love. He was a child. He was as frank as a child too. He was hungry for
the girl, terribly hungry, as he had been terribly hungry for food.

Don't be shocked if I declare that in my belief it was the same
need, the same pain, the same torture. We are in his case allowed to
contemplate the foundation of all the emotions--that one joy which is
to live, and the one sadness at the root of the innumerable torments.
It was made plain by the way he talked. He had never suffered so. It was
gnawing, it was fire; it was there, like this! And after pointing below
his breastbone, he made a hard wringing motion with his hands. And I
assure you that, seen as I saw it with my bodily eyes, it was anything
but laughable. And again, as he was presently to tell me (alluding to an
early incident of the disastrous voyage when some damaged meat had been
flung overboard), he said that a time soon came when his heart ached
(that was the expression he used), and he was ready to tear his hair out
at the thought of all that rotten beef thrown away.

I had heard all this; I witnessed his physical struggles, seeing the
working of the rack and hearing the true voice of pain. I witnessed it
all patiently, because the moment I came into the cuddy he had called
upon me to stand by him--and this, it seems, I had diplomatically
promised.

His agitation was impressive and alarming in the little cabin, like the
floundering of a great whale driven into a shallow cove in a coast. He