stood up; he flung himself down headlong; he tried to tear the cushion
with his teeth; and again hugging it fiercely to his face he let himself
fall on the couch. The whole ship seemed to feel the shock of his
despair; and I contemplated with wonder the lofty forehead, the noble
touch of time on the uncovered temples, the unchanged hungry character
of the face--so strangely ascetic and so incapable of portraying
emotion.

What should he do? He had lived by being near her. He had sat--in the
evening--I knew?-all his life! She sewed. Her head was bent--so. Her
head--like this--and her arms. Ah! Had I seen? Like this.

He dropped on a stool, bowed his powerful neck whose nape was red,
and with his hands stitched the air, ludicrous, sublimely imbecile and
comprehensible.

And now he couldn't have her? No! That was too much. After thinking too
that . . . What had he done? What was my advice? Take her by force? No?
Mustn't he? Who was there then to kill him? For the first time I saw
one of his features move; a fighting teeth-baring curl of the lip. . . .
"Not Hermann, perhaps." He lost himself in thought as though he had
fallen out of the world.

I may note that the idea of suicide apparently did not enter his head
for a single moment. It occurred to me to ask:

"Where was it that this shipwreck of yours took place?"

"Down south," he said vaguely with a start.