“We were on deck in an instant.  It was too late.  The water circled us about and was running toward the coast at tremendous speed.  No, it did not run, it glided, crept, spread like an immense, limitless blot.  The water was barely a few centimeters deep, but the rising flood had gone so far that we no longer saw the vanishing line of the imperceptible tide.

“The Englishman wanted to jump.  I held him back.  Flight was impossible because of the deep places which we had been obliged to go round on our way out and into which we should fall on our return.

“There was a minute of horrible anguish in our hearts.  Then the little English girl began to smile and murmured: 

“‘It is we who are shipwrecked.’

“I tried to laugh, but fear held me, a fear which was cowardly and horrid and base and treacherous like the tide.  All the danger which we ran appeared to me at once.  I wanted to shriek:  ‘Help!’ But to whom?

“The two younger girls were clinging to their father, who looked in consternation at the measureless sea which hedged us round about.

“The night fell as swiftly as the ocean rose—­a lowering, wet, icy night.

“I said: 

“’There’s nothing to do but to stay on the ship: 

“The Englishman answered: 

“‘Oh, yes!’

“And we waited there a quarter of an hour, half an hour, indeed I don’t know how long, watching that creeping water growing deeper as it swirled around us, as though it were playing on the beach, which it had regained.

“One of the young girls was cold, and we went below to shelter ourselves from the light but freezing wind that made our skins tingle.

“I leaned over the hatchway.  The ship was full of water.  So we had to cower against the stern planking, which shielded us a little.

“Darkness was now coming on, and we remained huddled together.  I felt the shoulder of the little English girl trembling against mine, her teeth chattering from time to time.  But I also felt the gentle warmth of her body through her ulster, and that warmth was as delicious to me as a kiss.  We no longer spoke; we sat motionless, mute, cowering down like animals in a ditch when a hurricane is raging.  And, nevertheless, despite the night, despite the terrible and increasing danger, I began to feel happy that I was there, glad of the cold and the peril, glad of the long hours of darkness and anguish that I must pass on this plank so near this dainty, pretty little girl.

“I asked myself, ‘Why this strange sensation of well-being and of joy?’

“Why!  Does one know?  Because she was there?  Who?  She, a little unknown English girl?  I did not love her, I did not even know her.  And for all that, I was touched and conquered.  I wanted to save her, to sacrifice myself for her, to commit a thousand follies!  Strange thing!  How does it happen that the presence of a woman overwhelms us so?  Is it the power of her grace which enfolds us?  Is it the seduction of her beauty and youth, which intoxicates one like wine?