, with
his back turned to the table.

"I am a German woman and ..."

CHAPTER VII

THE SIN OF ULYSSES

Every morning on awaking at the first streak of dawn, Toni felt a
sensation of surprise and discouragement.

"Still in Naples!" he would say, looking through the port-hole of his
cabin.

Then he would count over the days. Ten had passed by since the _Mare
Nostrum_, entirely repaired, had anchored in the commercial harbor.

"Twenty-four hours more," the mate would add mentally.

And he would again take up his monotonous life, strolling over the
empty and silent deck of the vessel, without knowing what to do,
looking despondently at the other steamers which were moving their
freighting antennae, swallowing up boxes and bundles and beginning to
send out through their chimneys the smoke announcing departure.

He suffered great remorse in calculating what the boat might have
gained were it now under way. The advantage was all for the captain,
but he could not avoid despairing over the money lost.

The necessity of communicating his impressions to somebody, of
protesting in chorus against this lamentable inertia, used to impel him
toward Caragol's dominions. In spite of their difference in rank, the
first officer always treated the cook with affectionate familiarity.

"An abyss is separating us!" Toni would say gravely.

This "abyss" was a metaphor extracted from his reading of radical
papers and alluded to the old man's fervid and simple beliefs. But
their common affection for the captain, all being from the same land,
and the employment of the Valencian dialect as the language of
intimacy, made the two seek each other's company instinctively. For
Toni, Caragol was the most congenial spirit aboard ... after himself.

As soon as he stopped at the door of the galley, supporting his elbow
in the doorway and obstructing the sunlight with his body, the old cook
would reach out for his bottle of brandy, preparing a "refresco" or a
"caliente" in honor of his visitor.

They would drink slowly, interrupting their relish of the liquor to
lament together the immovability of the _Mare Nostrum_. They would
count up the cost as though the boat were theirs. While it was being
repaired, they had been able to tolerate the captain's conduct.

"The English always pay," Toni would say. "But now nobody is paying and
the ship isn't earning anything, and we are spending every day....
About how much are we spending?"

And