Blue Voyage: A Novel Read Online Free Page B

which had just come in from the first cabin, finished arranging its music on tripods, and struck loudly, coarsely into “My Little Gray Home in the West.” Flute, violin, piano and double-bass. The flute player, a young man with a pale, fine girlish face and a blond cascade of hair, hooked his lip earnestly over the flute: uncous lip. How white his hands were, too, on the black flute. My lit-tle gray ho-ome in the West . A brick vault in the cemetery, overgrown, oversnarled, with gaudy trumpet vine, steaming in the tropic sun. Bones in the tropic dust. My little red house in the south. Bees and bones and trumpet flowers: nostalgia, Gauguin, heart of darkness … Mrs. Faubion passed him, singing “ My lit-tle gray ho’ome ——” her eyes wide and … absorbent . Demarest felt like turning up his coat collar against a draft. A tall, dark, romantic young man came after her, carrying her coat and a steamer rug. Victim No. 1. Daisy Dacey stood at the corridor door, engaged in lively conservation with the Chief Steward. She pirouetted, slid, waved her arms, giggled, and the Chief Steward looked down at her intently, preening his little black mustache abstractedly, as if he weren’t so much listening as watching, waiting. “Hello!” she cried to Demarest as he passed. “Hello!” sang Demarest mockingly. After he had passed, he heard her crying, amid the harsh music, “Never—never— never !” At the same time, thin and far away, he heard the ship’s bell hurriedly striking eight: tin-tin, tin-tin, tin-tin, tin-tin . What watch was this—Dog Watch? No. The Watch of the Great Bear. The Watch of the Lion. The Watch of the Sphinx. The Queen of Sheba would be sitting in his stateroom, on a small golden chair, clawing a pomegranate on a golden dish. “Naughty, naughty!” she cried to her Sphinx cub, wagging a finger. Then she put down her locked hands, crying, “Jump, Sphinx!” and the little gray sphinx leapt, expressionless, over the alabaster hoop. “Mad, mad. I’m completely mad.”
    He walked twice round the deck in the wind and dark. It was cold. The deck was dimly lighted, and everything looked a little fantastic—enormous ventilators, mysterious people stepping out of mysterious doors, a submarine murmur of ragtime. A cluster of tiny lights far away to port indicated Long Island. As he crossed the shelter deck behind the smoking room he saw Pauline Faubion, and the Romantic Young Man, sitting, well wrapped, in steamer chairs. The Young Man was leaning his head very close to her, talking in a low confidential voice—she regarded him with solemn probing indifference. Why was it not himself who sat beside her, talking? Oh, he knew well enough why—though he knew also, with conviction, that Pauline would have preferred him to her present company … The sea was black, with hints of white, and the wind brought unceasingly from it the fluctuatingly melancholy and savage sound of charging waves.
    The smoking room had become noisy and cheerful. Bottles stood on the table with half-filled glasses, blue smoke drifted in long lazy-swirling parallels, like isobars on a weather chart. Four men played whist at the table in the far corner— bang ! went down a card; knock ! went down another. Card games as a form of physical exercise. In another corner, Smith sat back alone, solemnly and appreciatively smoking. He tapped indicatively the seat next to him, blowing a rich plume of smoke. Demarest sat down, feeling relaxed and melancholy.
    “Well,” said Smith, after a pause. “I’ve told you what I’m going for—what are you going for?”
    Demarest laughed,—looking through Smith, through the wall, through the sea, the night. He waved his hand weakly.
    “Me?” he answered. “Oh, I’m going to see the chimera. The Great Chimera.”
    “I didn’t know it was in captivity.”
    “It isn’t.”
    “A girl? I get you, Steve.”
    “Yes.”
    There was another pause, and Smith added humorously:
    “Well, I’m an