Jack - Alphonse Daudet (inspirational books .TXT) 📗

engineer of the Cydnus was in a very bad humor because he had not his full number of stokers on board.
"We must hasten," said Rondic; and they hailed a boat, and rapidly threaded their way through the harbor. The enormous transatlantic steamers lay at their wharves as if asleep; the decks of two large English ships just arrived from Calcutta were covered with sailors, all hard at work. They passed between these motionless masses, where the water was as dark as a canal running through the midst of a city under high walls; then they saw the Cydnus lying, with her steam on. A wiry little man, in his shirt-sleeves, with three stripes on his cap, hailed Jack and Rondic as their boat came alongside the steamer.
His words were inaudible through the din and tumult, but his gestures were eloquent enough. This was Blanchet, the chief engineer.
"You have come, then, have you?" he shouted. "I was afraid you meant to leave me in the lurch."
"It was my fault," said Rondic; "I wished to accompany the lad, and I could not get away yesterday."
"On board with you, quick!" returned the engineer; "he must get into his place at once."
They descended first one ladder, then another, and another. Jack, who had never been on board a large steamer, was stupefied at the size and the depth of this one. They descended to an abyss where the eyes accustomed to the light of day could distinguish absolutely nothing. The heat was stifling, and a final ladder led to the engine-room, where the heavy atmosphere, charged with a smell of oil, was almost insupportable. Great activity reigned in this room; a general examination was being made of the machinery, which glittered with cleanliness. Jack looked on curiously at the enormous structure, knowing that it would soon be his duty to watch it day and night.
At the end of the engine-room was a long passage. "That is where the coal is kept," said the engineer, carelessly; "and on the other side the stokers sleep."
Jack shuddered. The dormitory at the academy, the garret-room at the Rondics, were palaces in comparison.
The engineer pushed open a small door. Imagine a long cave, reddened by the reflection of a dozen furnaces in full blast; men, almost naked, were stirring the fire, the sweat pouring from their faces.
"Here is your man," said Blanchet to the head workman.
"All right, sir," said the other without turning round.
"Farewell," said Rondic. "Take care of yourself, my boy!" and he was gone.
Jack was soon set to work; his task was to carry the cinders from the furnace to the deck, and there throw them into the sea. It was very hard work: the baskets were heavy, the ladders narrow, and the change from the pure air above to the stifling atmosphere below absolutely suffocating. On the third trip Jack felt his legs giving way under him. He found it impossible to even lift his basket, and sank into a corner half fainting. One of the stokers, seeing his condition, brought him a large flask of brandy.
"Thank you; I never drink anything," said Jack.
The other laughed. "You will drink here," he answered.
"Never," murmured Jack; and lifting the heavy basket, more by an effort of will than by muscular force, he ascended the ladder.
From the deck an animated spectacle was to be seen. The little steamer ran to and fro from the wharf to the ship, laden with passengers who came hurriedly on board. The passengers were representatives of all nations. Some were gay, and others were weeping, but in the faces of all was to be read an anxiety or a hope; for these displacements, these movings, are almost invariably the result of some great disturbance, and are, in general, the last quiver of the shock that throws you from one continent to the other.
This same feverish element pervaded everything, even the vessel that strained at its anchor. It animated the curious crowd on the jetty who had come, some of them, to catch a last look of some dear face. It animated the fishing-boats, whose sails were spread for a night of toil.
Jack, with his empty basket at his feet, stood looking down at the passengers,--those belonging to the cabins comfortably established, those of the steerage seated on their slender luggage. Where were they going? What wild fancy took them away? What cold and stern reality awaited them on their landing? One couple interested him especially: it was a mother and a child who recalled to him the memory of Ida and little Jack. The lady was young and in black, with a heavy wrap thrown about her, a Mexican sarape with wide stripes. She had a certain air of independence characteristic of the wives of military or naval officers, who, from the frequent absence of their husbands, are thrown on their own resources. The child, dressed in the English fashion, looked as if he might have belonged to Lord Pembroke. When they passed Jack they both turned aside, and the long silk skirts were lifted that they might not touch his blackened garments. It was an almost imperceptible movement, but Jack understood it. A rough oath and a slap on the shoulder interrupted his sad thoughts.
"What the deuce are you up here for, sir? Go down to your post!" It was the engineer making his rounds. Jack went down without a word, humiliated at the reproof.
As he put his foot on the last ladder, a shudder was felt throughout the ship: she had started.
"Stand there!" said the head stoker.
Jack took his place before one of those gaping mouths; it was his duty to fill it, and to rake it, and to keep the fire clear. This was not such an easy matter, as, being unaccustomed to the sea, the pitching of the vessel came near throwing him into the flames. He nevertheless toiled on courageously, but at the end of an hour he was blind and deaf, stifled by the blood that rushed to his head. He did as the others did, and ran to the outer air. Ah, how good it was! Almost immediately, however, an icy blast struck him between the shoulders.
"Quick, give me the brandy!" he cried with a choked voice, to the man who had previously offered it to him.
"Here it is, comrade; I knew very well that you would want it before long."
He swallowed an enormous draught; it was almost pure alcohol, but he was so cold that it seemed like water. After a moment a comfortable warmth spread over his whole system, and then began a burning sensation in his stomach. To extinguish this fire he drank again. Fire within, and fire without,--flame upon flame,--was this the way that he was to live in future?
Then began a life of toil, hardship, and drunkenness that lasted three years:--three years whose seasons were all alike in that heated room down in the bowels of that big ship.
He sailed from country to country; he heard their names, Italian, French, and Spanish, but of them all he saw nothing. The fairer the climes they visited, the hotter was his chamber of torment. When he had emptied his cinders, broken his coal, and filled his furnaces, he slept the sleep of exhaustion and intoxication; for a stoker must drink if he lives. In the darkness of his life there was but one bright spot, his mother. She was like the Madonna in a chapel where all the lights are extinguished save the one that burns before her shrine. Now that he had become a man, much of the mystery of her life had become clear to him. His respect for Charlotte was changed to tender pity, and he loved her as we love those for whom we suffer. Even in his most despairing moments he remembered the end for which he toiled, and a mechanical instinct made him carefully preserve almost every sou of his wages.
Meanwhile, distance and time weakened the intercourse between mother and son. Jack's letters became more and more rare. Those of Charlotte were frequent, but they spoke of things so foreign to his new life, that he read them only to hear their music, the far off echo of a living tenderness.
Letters from Etiolles told him of D'Argenton; later, some from Paris spoke of their having again taken up their residence there, and of the poet having founded a Review, in consequence of the solicitations of friends. This would be a way of bringing his works prominently before the public, as well as to increase his income. At Havana Jack found a large package addressed to him. It was the first number of the magazine. The stoker mechanically turned its leaves, leaving on them the traces of his blackened fingers; and suddenly, as he saw the well-known names of D'Argenton, Moronval, and Hirsch on the smooth pages, he was seized with wild rage and indignation, and he cried aloud, as he shook his fist impatiently in the air, "Wretches, wretches! what have you made of me?"
This emotion was but brief; day by day his intellect weakened, and, strangely enough, he gained in physical health; he was stronger, and better able to support the fatigues of his daily labor; he seemed hardly to recognize any difference between bis days when the ship tossed and groaned, and his nights when he slept a drunken sleep, disturbed only by an occasional nightmare.
Was that frightful shock and crash of the Cydnus one of these dreams? That rushing of water, those cries of frightened women,--was all that a dream? His comrades called him, shook him. "Jack, Jack!" they cried; he staggered out, half naked. The engine-room was already half under water, the compass broken, the fires extinguished. The men ran against each other in the darkness. "What is it?" they cried.
An American ship had run them down. The men struggled up the narrow ladder; at the head stood the chief engineer with a revolver in his hand.
"The first man that attempts to pass me I will shoot! Go to your furnaces! Land is not far off; we shall reach it yet if my orders are obeyed." Each one turned, with rage and despair in his heart. They charged the furnaces with wet coal, and volumes of gas and smoke poured out; while the water still ascending, in spite of the constant work at the pumps, was as cold as ice. The pumps refuse to work, the furnaces will not burn. The stokers are in water up to their shoulders before the voice of the chief engineer is heard: "Save yourselves, my men, if you can!"


CHAPTER XVIII.~~D'ARGENTON'S MAGAZINE.
In a narrow street, quiet and orderly, in one of those houses belonging to the last century, D'Argen-ton had established himself as editor of the new magazine; while Jack, our friend Jack, was its proprietor. Do not smile: this was really the case; his money had been used to establish it Charlotte had some little scruple at first in so employing these funds, which she wished to preserve intact for the boy on his attaining his majority; but she yielded to the poet's persuasions.
"Come, my dear, listen! Figures are figures, you' know. Can there be a better investment than this Review? It is far safer than any railroad, at least Have I not placed my own funds in it?"
Within six months D'Argenton had sacrificed thirty thousand francs, and the receipts had been nothing, while the expenses were enormous. Besides the offices of the magazine, D'Argenton had hired in the same house a large apartment, from which he had a superb view. The city, the Seine, Notre Dame, numberless spires and domes, were all spread before his eyes. He saw the carriages pass over the bridges, and the boats