Sailors Morning Quotes

At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seeking afar off some white sail in the mists of the horizon. She did not know what this chance would be, what wind would bring it her, towards what shore it would drive her, if it would be a shallop or a three-decker, laden with anguish or full of bliss to the portholes. But each morning, as she awoke, she hoped it would come that day; she listened to every sound, sprang up with a start, wondered that it did not come; then at sunset, always more saddened, she longed for the morrow.

Deep down, all the while, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she kept casting desperate glances over the solitary waster of her life, seeking some white sail in the distant mists of the horizon. She had no idea by what wind it would reach her, toward what shore it would bear her, or what kind of craft it would be – tiny boat or towering vessel, laden with heartbreaks or filled to the gunwhales with rapture. But every morning when she awoke she hoped that today would be the day; she listened for every sound, gave sudden starts, was surprised when nothing happened; and then, sadder with each succeeding sunset, she longed for tomorrow.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Then

Deep in her soul, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon. She did not know what this chance event would be, what wind would drive it to her, what shore it would carry her to, whether it was a longboat or a three-decked vessel, loaded with anguish or filled with happiness up to the portholes. But each morning, when she awoke, she hoped it would arrive that day, and she would listen to every sound, spring to her feet, feel surprised that it had not come; then at sunset, always more sorrowful, she would wish the next day were already there.

No. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning,” Lito said, looking up into the red-tinged clouds. “A storm is coming.

Deep in her soul, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon. She did not know what this chance event would be, what wind would drive it to her, what shore it would carry her to, whether it was a longboat or a three-decked vessel, loaded with anguish or filled with happiness up to the portholes. But each morning, when she awoke, she hoped it would arrive that day.… —GUSTAVE FLAUBERT, Madame Bovary

My mum’s uncle was a sailor,’ said Nobby. ‘But after the big plague he got press-ganged. Bunch of farmers got him drunk, he woke up next morning tied to a plough.

Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder. And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night. Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… . And one fine morning —— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

Dear Mr. Nadeau: As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness. Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society – things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out. Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day. Sincerely, E. B. White

Since dark antiquity the words have been spoken by women of every caste to sailors in every port; words of docile acceptance of the horizon's authority, of reckless homage to that mysterious azure boundary; words never failing to bestow on even the haughtiest woman the sadness, the hollow hopes, and the freedom of the whore: 'You'll be leaving in the morning, won't you?...

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness. Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society—things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out. Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

ah yes I know them well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

up in Pacific Grove, a coastal town on the Monterey Peninsula in California, I had spent many Sunday mornings combing beaches, hunting for sea glass. I once believed the surf-tumbled glass had come from mermaids when the mythical creatures wept for sailors lost at sea, their tears hardened and washed ashore by the latest storm front. Mermaid tears were treasure, meant to be guarded close to one’s heart. They brought wishes of true love and kept you safe

I actually got so drunk I wrapped myself around the toilet bowl of the Scollay Square Cafe and got pissed and puked on all night long by a thousand sailors and seamen and when I woke up in the morning and found myself all covered and caked and unspeakably dirty I just like a good old Boston man walked down to the Atlantic Avenue docks and jumped into the sea.

One morning, he woke up and all he could think of was that he had been destroyed by his parents and it was too late to change. They had taken him like a con man takes a drunk sailor. He had believed too much. It was the grind that finally got to him.

Will there really be a "Morning"? Is there such a thing as "Day"? Could I see it from the mountains If I were as tall as they? Has it feet like Water lilies? Has it feathers like a Bird? Is it brought from famous countries Of which I have never heard? Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor! Oh some Wise Men from the skies! Please to tell a little Pilgrim Where the place called "Morning" lies!

One morning, as usual, Ahab went for a walk along the quarter-deck. He stopped before the mainmast and glanced at the gold coin nailed there. For the first time, Ahab seemed to be attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it. He seemed to ask himself what they could mean. It was sanctified for a terrifying end and the sailors considered it the White Whale's talisman. In its round border it bore the letters "Republica del Ecuador: Quito'. Noble golden coins like that are medals of the sun and tropics.

The gods of yesterday become the devils of tomorrow.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailors take warning.

The previous day, December 6, Sprague had upbraided his crew for their sloppy performance during an intensive series of drills. He broke with his nature and let them have it. Gathering his officers in the Tangier's wardroom, Sprague said, “We're not prepared. We can't trust the Japanese. How do you know the Japanese won't attack tomorrow?” The next morning the Combined Fleet struck.

One morning when the wind was blowing from the West, Stuart put on his sailor suit and his sailor hat, took his spyglass down from the shelf, and set out for a walk, full of the joy of life and the fear of dogs.

The tides run, the sun sets, the night passes, and in the morning, just at dawn, the islands come into view again as they did for Cook so long ago, a fresher green breast of the new world than ever the old Atlantic sailors saw, and still a place of gentle, beckoning beauty.

Imagine a single survivor, a lonely fugitive at large on mainland Mauritius at the end of the seventeenth century. Imagine this fugitive as a female. She would have been bulky and flightless and befuddled—but resourceful enough to have escaped and endured when the other birds didn’t. Or else she was lucky. Maybe she had spent all her years in the Bambous Mountains along the southeastern coast, where the various forms of human-brought menace were slow to penetrate. Or she might have lurked in a creek drainage of the Black River Gorges. Time and trouble had finally caught up with her. Imagine that her last hatchling had been snarfed by a [invasive] feral pig. That her last fertile egg had been eaten by a [invasive] monkey. That her mate was dead, clubbed by a hungry Dutch sailor, and that she had no hope of finding another. During the past halfdozen years, longer than a bird could remember, she had not even set eyes on a member of her own species. Raphus cucullatus had become rare unto death. But this one flesh-and-blood individual still lived. Imagine that she was thirty years old, or thirty-five, an ancient age for most sorts of bird but not impossible for a member of such a large-bodied species. She no longer ran, she waddled. Lately she was going blind. Her digestive system was balky. In the dark of an early morning in 1667, say, during a rainstorm, she took cover beneath a cold stone ledge at the base of one of the Black River cliffs. She drew her head down against her body, fluffed her feathers for warmth, squinted in patient misery. She waited. She didn't know it, nor did anyone else, but she was the only dodo on Earth. When the storm passed, she never opened her eyes. This is extinction.

And all the time, deep within her, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a shipwrecked sailor she scanned her solitude with desperate eyes for the sight of a white sail far off on the misty horizon. She had no idea what that chance would be, what wind would waft it to her, where it would set her ashore, whether it was a launch or a three-decker, laden with anguish or filled to the portholes with happiness. But every morning when she woke she hoped to find it there.

That morning had been so beautiful I was afraid of squandering it. Some day you might know what I mean. April, a tumult of tender new growth after the long hard slog of winter. The imperative to get my fill of summer before it ended although it had not yet begun. To get my fix of whatever it was I thought I needed so badly in my life, that thing, that maddening thing, that was missing. When I look back on my own childhood I see summer days, but when I look back on yours I feel cold.

Paint thinner is the boatyard’s morning dew. The stringent smell awakens the mind of a sailor as spring flowers awaken the mind of a poet. The boatyard, a reflection of your life, reminds us that the least desirable jobs often prove to be the most important and fulfilling. The harder the task, the more one feels rewarded when accomplishing it. Paint erratically splatters on skin in the same fashion that the stars come to fill up the night sky, the constellations on your forearms telling of the most recent project.

Street-Cries II. The Ship of Earth Thou ship of Earth, with Death, and Birth, and Life, and Sex aboard, And fires of Desires burning hotly in the hold, I fear thee, O! I fear thee, for I hear the tongue and sword At battle on the deck, and the wild mutineers are bold! The dewdrop morn may fall from off the petal of the sky, But all the deck is wet with blood and stains the crystal red. A pilot, God, a pilot! for the helm is left awry, And the best sailors in the ship lie there among the dead! Prattville, Alabama, 1868

My wife and I said good-bye the next morning in a little sheltered place among the lumber on the wharf; she was one of your women who never like to do their crying before folks. She climbed on the pile of lumber and sat down, a little flushed and quivery, to watch us off. I remember seeing her there with the baby till we were well down the channel. I remember noticing the bay as it grew cleaner, and thinking that I would break off swearing; and I remember cursing Bob Smart like a pirate within an hour. ("Kentucky's Ghost")

When Franz returned to himself, he seemed still to be in a dream. He thought himself in a sepulchre, into which a ray of sunlight in pity scarcely penetrated. He stretched forth his hand, and touched stone; he rose to his seat, and found himself lying on his bournous in a bed of dry heather, very soft and odoriferous. The vision had fled; and as if the statues had been but shadows from the tomb, they had vanished at his waking. He advanced several paces towards the point whence the light came, and to all the excitement of his dream succeeded the calmness of reality. He found that he was in a grotto, went towards the opening, and through a kind of fanlight saw a blue sea and an azure sky. The air and water were shining in the beams of the morning sun; on the shore the sailors were sitting, chatting and laughing; and at ten yards from them the boat was at anchor, undulating gracefully on the water. There for some time he enjoyed the fresh breeze which played on his brow, and listened to the dash of the waves on the beach, that left against the rocks a lace of foam as white as silver. He was for some time without reflection or thought for the divine charm which is in the things of nature, specially after a fantastic dream; then gradually this view of the outer world, so calm, so pure, so grand, reminded him of the illusiveness of his vision, and once more awakened memory. He recalled his arrival on the island, his presentation to a smuggler chief, a subterranean palace full of splendor, an excellent supper, and a spoonful of hashish. It seemed, however, even in the very face of open day, that at least a year had elapsed since all these things had passed, so deep was the impression made in his mind by the dream, and so strong a hold had it taken of his imagination. Thus every now and then he saw in fancy amid the sailors, seated on a rock, or undulating in the vessel, one of the shadows which had shared his dream with looks and kisses. Otherwise, his head was perfectly clear, and his body refreshed; he was free from the slightest headache; on the contrary, he felt a certain degree of lightness, a faculty for absorbing the pure air, and enjoying the bright sunshine more vividly than ever.

Who can blame the poor lad for not advertising his rather unique name? Especially when his mother’s maiden name is Jewel Diamond Sunrise and his grandmother’s is Dawn Moonbeam Sunrise. Dawn Sunrise, such a pretty name. And it is true that your mother was almost named Red Sky Sunrise, but your grandfather said he would divorce her mother if she didn’t change it. He was in the navy and thought that it was a bad omen. Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning, you know. And Max’s grandmother didn’t tell anyone that she considered calling her daughter Sunset Sunrise. Catchy isn’t it?

I spent most of the morning surveying the perimeter, wading in and out of the trees. I noted mushroom rings and unusual moss patterns, the folds in the land where flowers grew thick and the places where they slid from one color to another, and those trees which seemed darker and cruder than the others, as if they had drunk a substance other than water. An odd mist billowed from a little hollow cupped within the rugged ground; this I discovered to be a hot spring. Above it, upon a rocky ledge, were several wooden figurines, some half overgrown with moss. There was also a small pile of what I recognized as rock caramels, the salty-sweet Ljosland candies that several of the sailors had favored.

One nurse at Great Lakes would later be haunted by nightmares. The wards had forty-two beds; boys lying on the floor on stretchers waited for the boy on the bed to die. Every morning the ambulances arrived and stretcher bearers carried sick sailors in and bodies out. She remembered that at the peak of the epidemic the nurses wrapped more than one living patient in winding sheets and put toe tags on the boys’ left big toe. It saved time, and the nurses were utterly exhausted. The toe tags were shipping tags, listing the sailor’s name, rank, and hometown. She remembered bodies “stacked in the morgue from floor to ceiling like cord wood.” In her nightmares she wondered “what it would feel like to be that boy who was at the bottom of the cord wood in the morgue.

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night forever And you know that she's half-crazy but that's why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her Then he gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer that you've always been her lover And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind And you know that she will trust you For you've touched her perfect body with your mind And Jesus was a sailor when he walked upon the water And he spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower And when he knew for certain only drowning men could see him He said all men will be sailors then until the sea shall free them But he himself was broken, long before the sky would open Forsaken, almost human, he sank beneath your wisdom like a stone And you want to travel with him, and you want to travel blind And you think you maybe you'll trust him For he's touched your perfect body with her mind Now, Suzanne takes your hand and she leads you to the river She's wearing rags and feathers from Salvation Army counters And the sun pours down like honey on our lady of the harbor And she shows you where to look among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning They are leaning out for love and they wil lean that way forever While Suzanne holds her mirror And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind And you know that you can trust her For she's touched your perfect body with her mind

North Brooklin, Maine 30 March 1973 Dear Mr. Nadeau: As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness. Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society—things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man's curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out. Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day. Sincerely, [Signed, 'E. B. White']

With one final flip the quarter flew high into the air and came down on the mattress with a light bounce. It jumped several inches off the bed, high enough for the instructor to catch it in his hand. Swinging around to face me, the instructor looked me in the eye and nodded. He never said a word. Making my bed correctly was not going to be an opportunity for praise. It was expected of me. It was my first task of the day, and doing it right was important. It demonstrated my discipline. It showed my attention to detail, and at the end of the day it would be a reminder that I had done something well, something to be proud of, no matter how small the task. Throughout my life in the Navy, making my bed was the one constant that I could count on every day. As a young SEAL ensign aboard the USS Grayback, a special operation submarine, I was berthed in sick bay, where the beds were stacked four high. The salty old doctor who ran sick bay insisted that I make my rack every morning. He often remarked that if the beds were not made and the room was not clean, how could the sailors expect the best medical care? As I later found out, this sentiment of cleanliness and order applied to every aspect of military life. Thirty years later, the Twin Towers came down in New York City. The Pentagon was struck, and brave Americans died in an airplane over Pennsylvania. At the time of the attacks, I was recuperating in my home from a serious parachute accident. A hospital bed had been wheeled into my government quarters, and I spent most of the day lying on my back, trying to recover. I wanted out of that bed more than anything else. Like every SEAL I longed to be with my fellow warriors in the fight. When I was finally well enough to lift myself unaided from the bed, the first thing I did was pull the sheets up tight, adjust the pillow, and make sure the hospital bed looked presentable to all those who entered my home. It was my way of showing that I had conquered the injury and was moving forward with my life. Within four weeks of 9/11, I was transferred to the White House, where I spent the next two years in the newly formed Office of Combatting Terrorism. By October 2003, I was in Iraq at our makeshift headquarters on the Baghdad airfield. For the first few months we slept on Army cots. Nevertheless, I would wake every morning, roll up my sleeping bag, place the pillow at the head of the cot, and get ready for the day.

For it is a fact that man can be profoundly out of step with his times. A man may have been born in a city famous for its idiosyncratic culture and yet, the very habits, fashions, and ideas that exalt that city in the eyes of the world may make no sense to him at all. As he proceeds through life, he looks about in a state of confusion, understanding neither the inclinations nor the aspirations of his peers. For such a fellow, forget any chance of romance or professional success; those are the provenance of men in step with their times. Instead, for this fellow the options will be to bray like a mule or find what solace he can from overlooked volumes discovered in overlooked bookshops. And when his roommate stumbles home at two in the morning, he has little choice but to listen in silent mystification as he is recounted the latest dramas from the city’s salons. But events can unfold in such a manner that overnight the man out of step finds himself in the right place at the right time. The fashions and attitudes that had seemed to alien to him are suddenly swept aside and supplanted by fashions and attitudes in perfect sympathy with his deepest sentiments. Then, like a lone sailor adrift for years on alien seas, he wakes one night to discover familiar constellations overhead. And when this occurs--this extraordinary realignment of the stars--the man so long out of step with his times experiences a supreme lucidity. Suddenly all that has passed comes into focus as a necessary course of events, and all that promises to unfold has the clearest rhyme and reason.

After hunting for an hour, they found a stray cat small enough to ride in the palm of Noboru’s hand, a mottled, mewing kitten with lackluster eyes. By then they were sweating heavily, so they undressed and took turns splashing in a sink in one corner of the shed. While they bathed, the kitten was passed around. Noboru felt the kitten’s hot heart pumping against his wet naked chest. It was like having stolen into the shed with some of the dark, joy-flushed essence of bright summer sunlight. “How are we going to do it?” “There’s a log over there. We can smack it against that—it’ll be easy. Go ahead, number three.” At last the test of Noboru’s hard, cold heart! Just a minute before, he had taken a cold bath, but he was sweating heavily again. He felt it blow up through his breast like the morning sea breeze: intent to kill. His chest felt like a clothes rack made of hollow metal poles and hung with white shirts drying in the sun. Soon the shirts would be flapping in the wind and then he would be killing, breaking the endless chain of society’s loathsome taboos. Noboru seized the kitten by the neck and stood up. It dangled dumbly from his fingers. He checked himself for pity; like a lighted window seen from an express train, it flickered for an instant in the distance and disappeared. He was relieved. The chief always insisted it would take acts such as this to fill the world’s great hollows. Though nothing else could do it, he said, murder would fill those gaping caves in much the same way that a crack along its face will fill a mirror. Then they would achieve real power over existence.

Guilt. Torment. Sorrow. Shock. Which?” she asked against his chest. “I’m trying,” he murmured on a weary chuckle. “But all I can manage is pride,” he added softly. “I satisfied you completely, didn’t I?” “More than completely,” she murmured against his damp shoulder. Her hand traced his chest, feeling the coolness of his skin, the ripple of muscle. “Hold me close.” He wrapped both arms around her and drew her on top of him, holding her hungrily to him, their legs lazily entwined. “I seduced you.” She pressed a soft kiss to his collarbone. “Mmm-hmm.” He caught his breath as the tiny, insignificant movement produced a sudden, raging arousal. She lifted her head. “Did I do something wrong?” He lifted an eyebrow and nodded toward his flat stomach. She followed his amused glance and caught her breath. He drew her mouth down over his and kissed her ferociously before he sat up and moved off the bed. “Where are you going?” she asked, startled. He drew on his briefs and his slacks, glancing down at her with amused delight. “One of us has to be sensible,” he told her. “Colby’s probably on his way back right now.” “But he just left…” “Almost an hour ago,” he finished for her, nodding toward the clock on the bedside table. She sat up, her eyes wide with surprise. “I took a long time with you,” he said gently. “Didn’t you notice?” She laughed self-consciously. “Well, yes, but I didn’t realize it was that long.” He drew her off the bed and bent to kiss her tenderly, nuzzling her face with his. “Was I worth waiting for?” he asked. She smiled. “What a silly question.” He kissed her again, but when he lifted his head he wasn’t smiling. “I loved what we did together,” he said quietly. “But I should have been more responsible.” She knew what he was thinking. He hadn’t used anything, and he surely knew that she wasn’t. She flattened her hand against his bare chest. “There’s a morning-after pill. I’ll drive into the city tomorrow and get one,” she said, lying like a sailor. She had no intention of doing that, but it would comfort him. He found that he didn’t like that idea. It hurt something deeply primitive in him. He scowled. “That could be dangerous.” “No, it’s not. He traced her fingernails while he tried to think. It seemed like a fantasy, a dream. He’d never had such an experience with a woman in his life. She closed her eyes and moved closer to him. “I could never have done that with anyone else,” she whispered. “It was more beautiful than my dreams.” His heart jumped. That was how it felt to him, too. He tilted her face so that he could search her soft eyes. She was radiant; she almost glowed. “Kiss me,” he murmured softly. She did. But he wasn’t smiling. She could almost see the thoughts in his face. “You didn’t force me, Tate,” she said gently. “I made a conscious decision. I made a choice. I needed to know if what had happened to me had destroyed me as a woman. I found out in the most wonderful way that it hadn’t. I’m not ashamed of what we did together.” “Neither am I.” He turned, his face still tormented. “But it wasn’t my right.” “To be the first?” She smiled gently. “It would have been you eight years ago or eight years from now. I don’t want anyone else-not that way. I never did.” He actually winced. “Cecily…” “I’m not asking for declarations of undying love. I won’t cling. I’m not the type.

I. The Burial of the Dead April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. [...] (Come in under the shadow of this red rock), And I will show you something different from either Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you, I will show you fear in a handful of dust. [...] Unreal City, Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. [...] II. A Game of Chess [...] Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair Spread out in fiery points Glowed into words, then would be savagely still. III. The Fire Sermon [...] The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. [...] At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea, The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights Her stove, and lays out food in tins. [...] I Tiresias, old man with dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest-- I too awaited the expected guest. [...] IV. Death by Water [...] A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell He passed the stages of his age and youth Entering the whirlpool. [...] V. What the Thunder Said [...] A woman drew her long black hair out tight And fiddled whisper music on those strings And bats with baby faces in the violet light Whistled, and beat their wings And crawled head downward down a blackened wall And upside down in air were towers Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.

You are clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are: that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men's eyes, because they know-or think they know-some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new, and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young-like the fine ladies at the opera. I sup-pose now you do not believe in corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialization. No? Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism-' 'Yes,' I said. 'Charcot has proved that pretty well.' He smiled as he went on: 'Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcot-alas that he is no more!-into the very soul of the patient that he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell me for I am stu-dent of the brain-how you accept the hypnotism and reject the thought-reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done to-day in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered electricity-who would themselves not so long before have been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and "Old Parr" one hundred and sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day! For, had she lived one more day, we could have save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy, and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that come at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins; how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, that those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them, and then and then in the morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was?

I’ll try verra hard, John.” The Governor sat down, wearily. There were deep circles under his eyes, and his impeccable linen was wilted; obviously he had not changed his clothes from the day before. “All right. I don’t know where you’re going, and it’s likely better I don’t. But if you can, keep out of the sealanes north of Antigua. I sent a boat this morning, to ask for as many men as the barracks there can supply, marines and sailors both.

In his four months in England, wrote Corwin, “I did not once interview a high government official. The main objective of the series was to establish the character of the British people and not disseminate the handouts of the Ministry of Information. The people were soldiers, sailors, workers, miners, the theater manager, the elevator man, Police Officer Gilbert, the Everingtons, the Westerbys, Betty Hardy the actress, Henry Blogg the lifesaver, Mary Seaton the newspaperwoman, the RAF officer who handed me a dish in the mess and explained, ‘This sausage is made of two ingredients—paper and sawdust’; the navigator, just returned from Wilhelmshaven, who said wistfully, ‘Somehow we’re always first in over the target’; the woman in Swansea who went to the Guildhall one morning following a severe blitz and turned in two suits of clothes, both nearly new, saying she had bought them for her two boys, killed in the raid.

The guns on both sides were silent until they returned. Suddenly, a fierce cannonade from the British ships exploded onto the beach at Turtle Gut Inlet, but only one American was hit, “Shott through the arm and body.” It was Richard Wickes. A cannonball took his arm and half his chest away. Fresh from the Reprisal, Lambert Wickes arrived on the beach at the head of his reinforcements just as his younger brother died: “I arrived just at the Close of the Action Time enough to see him expire . . . Captn Barry . . . says a braver Man never existed.”123 Taking Richard Wickes's body, the American sailors left the spit of sand they fought over that morning. The powder was stowed in the Wasp's hold and sent up the Delaware. “At 2 weighed and made Sail,” Hudson briefly noted in his journal.124 The British returned to Cape Henlopen. As before, Barry had taken long odds, assessed the best plan that could succeed, and beaten the British. The Nancy was destroyed, but the Wasp would reach Philadelphia safely with the desperately needed gunpowder. Despite superior firepower, the “butcher's bill” was far heavier for the British. But the victory brought no cheers or satisfaction among the Americans, and Barry was particularly saddened by the death of the gallant young Wickes.125 The next morning—Sunday, June 30—the men of the Lexington and Reprisal gathered to mourn their shipmate at the log meetinghouse in the small village of Cold Spring, just north of Cape May. Under the same light breezes of the day before, the American sailors, with “bowed and uncovered heads,” filed inside and sat on the long, rough-cut wooden pews. After “The Clergyman preached a very deacent Sermon,” Lambert Wickes and the Reprisal's officers silently hoisted the coffin. Shuffling under its weight, they carried it outside to the little cemetery, and laid their comrade to rest.126 Lambert Wickes now faced the task of informing his family in Maryland of Richard's death. On July 2, in a sad but disjointed letter to his brother Samuel, he mentioned Richard's death among a list of the items—including the sugar and “one Bagg Coffee” that accompanied the letter. “You'll disclose this Secret with as much Caution as possible to our Sisters,” he pleaded. He quoted Barry's report that Richard “fought like a brave Man & was fore most in every transaction of that day,” dying for the cause of the “united Colonies.”127 By the time Lambert's package reached his family in Maryland, the “united Colonies” ceased to exist as well. The same day Wickes posted his letter, Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. Barry, Wickes, and the rest of the Continental Navy were now fighting for the survival of a new country: the United States of America.

everyone called “little potato.” She had such a sweet smile. Every night there would be a brawl between sailors and Marines. It was great fun to run from the shore patrol and hop a speeding “jeepney” decorated with silver bangles that cruised the main drag. One had to be careful to pay and leap off in time; otherwise they often would drive you beyond the town limits where muggers would wait to roll you. On the street we would eat strips of grilled meat, purported to be monkey, that were made by grungy street vendors. Every morning I would drag my sorry ass back to the Quonset hut in time for reveille. After several visits I became braver and ventured off the main street. I ran into some Americans who lived there. I was deeply intrigued with the possibility

Conan listened unperturbed. War was his trade. Life was a continual battle, or series of battles, since his birth. Death had been a constant companion. It stalked horrifically at his side; stood at his shoulder beside the gaming-tables; its bony fingers rattled the wine-cups. It loomed above him, a hooded and monstrous shadow, when he lay down to sleep. He minded its presence no more than a king minds the presence of his cupbearer. Some day its bony grasp would close; that was all. It was enough that he lived through the present.

So court often involved a power struggle between two more or less equal forces, as when a sailor found that the wind was blowing his boat one way while the tide took it another.

The morning was beautiful. The whole Hudson River Valley was beautiful. I thought of the last page of The Great Gatsby, the green land flowering before the Dutch sailors’ eyes, that last moment, Fitzgerald wrote, when man was face to face with something commensurate with his capacity for wonder. I thought of Dirk’s inadvertent similarity to Gatsby—the unused rooms of his house, the twenty-two televisions, which were maybe the convenient, modern stand-in for glittering parties, and I wondered what part of the past he was trying to recapture. I wondered if it was similar to the feeling of community my parents were trying to recapture every time they drove through Newburgh. And I wondered if it was similar to what I was trying to recapture by living in the woods, just in my own solitary way.

they were all dirty, yet they were the most judgmental people she had ever seen. On Monday through Saturday, they got drunk, smoked like a chimney, and cursed like sailors. Come Sunday morning, they rolled out of the bed with stale breath, got dressed, and marched down to the Lord’s house to tell someone else’s business. It didn’t matter whose business it was as long as it wasn’t their own.

As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness. Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society — things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out. Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.

My mum's uncle was a sailor," said Nobby. "But after the big plague he got press-ganged. Bunch of farmers got him drunk, and he woke up next morning tied to a plough.

They set sail for the emerald green islands in seas Where the rocks and the trade winds are brothers. There are mountains nearby and they reach to the sky, Shearing clouds and warding off others. Warm mists o’er the blue bring a mermaid or two Up fathoms from the cold briny water. Sailors in the nest may spy the beautiful breasts And the tail of the Ocean God’s daughter. It happened one morning as daylight was dawning On a ship that was already a-stirrin’. A soft salty breeze put the crew to their knees With a song that sent their senses a-blurrin’. In the gray morning light, a young sailor caught sight Of a beautiful mermaid a-swimmin’. He then made a wish to be loved by a fish That was better by far than most women. —Brik

Agustín Parlá Orduña was among the early Cuban aviation aces. He was born in Key West, Florida, on October 10, 1887, and received his early education there. After Cuba was liberated from Spain, the family returned to Havana, where he continued his education. On April 20, 1912, he received his pilot’s license at the Curtiss School of Aviation in Miami. On July 5, 1913, when the Cuban Army Air Corps was formed, Agustín Parlá was commissioned as a captain in the Cuban Armed Forces. On May 17, 1913, Domingo Rosillo and Agustín Parlá attempted the first international flights to Latin America, by trying to fly their airplanes from Key West to Havana. At 5:10 a.m., Rosillo departed from Key West and flew for 2 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds before running out of gas. He had planned to land at the airfield at Camp Columbia in Havana, but instead managed to squeak in at the shooting range, thereby still satisfactorily completing the flight. Parlá left Key West at 5:57 in the morning. Just four minutes later, at 6:01 a.m., he had to carefully turn back to the airstrip he had just left, since the aircraft didn’t properly respond to his controls. Parlá said, “It would not let me compensate for the wind that blew.” When he returned to Key West, he discovered that two of the tension wires to the elevator were broken. On May 19, 1913, Parlá tried again and left Key West, carrying the Cuban Flag his father had received from José Martí. This time he fell short and had to land at sea off the Cuban coast near Mariel, where sailors rescued him from his seaplane.

sky at night, sailors delight. Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning.

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.

it was a difficult matter for a private individual to finance the creation of a settlement. And Ralegh’s beloved Virgin Queen was far too cautious with her funds to finance a colonial venture, even if England’s long-running war with Spain had left enough coin in the royal treasury to cover the expense. Then, in 1603, everything changed. Early in the morning of March 24 of that year, Elizabeth I, the queen whose reign was expected to outlast the moon and sun, died in her private chamber in Richmond Palace. The queen’s death and the accession of James VI of Scotland as James I of England brought quick peace between England and Spain; freed private capital that could be used to finance foreign settlements; and made soldiers and sailors available, indeed desperate, for employment. Suddenly, English capitalists were looking hungrily at Virginia as a potential outlet for

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailor’s warning.

On May 17, 1913, Domingo Rosillo and Agustín Parlá attempted the first international flights to Latin America, by trying to fly their airplanes from Key West to Havana. At 5:10 a.m., Rosillo departed from Key West and flew for 2 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds before running out of gas. He had planned to land at the airfield at Camp Columbia in Havana, but instead managed to squeak in at the camp’s shooting range, thereby still satisfactorily completing the flight. Parlá left Key West at 5:57 in the morning. Just four minutes later, at 6:01 a.m., he had to carefully turn back to the airstrip he had just left, since the aircraft didn’t properly respond to his controls. Parlá said, “It would not let me compensate for the wind that blew.” When he returned to Key West, he discovered that two of the tension wires to the aircraft’s elevators were broken. Two days later, Parlá tried again and left Key West, carrying the Cuban Flag his father had received from José Martí. This time he fell short and had to land at sea off the Cuban coast near Mariel. Sailors from the Cuban Navy rescued him from his seaplane. Being adventuresome, while attending the Curtiss School of Aviation in 1916, Parlá flew over Niagara Falls. In his honor, the Cuban flag was hoisted and the Cuban national anthem was played. The famous Cuban composer, pianist, and bandleader, Antonio M. Romeu, composed a song in his honor named “Parlá over the Niagara” and Agustín Parlá became known as the “Father of Cuban Aviation.

The battle of Leyte Gulf was short, lasting only from October 23–26, 1944. But don’t let the duration fool you. The Philippine Sea, around the chain of islands where the battle was fought, was a roiling cauldron for those four days. On the morning of the 23rd, that sea held the largest assemblage of ships, in terms of tonnage, the world had ever seen. By the evening of the 26th, Leyte Gulf had taken more tonnage to its murky depths than in any other naval battle in history. The Japanese lost four aircraft carriers, three battleships, six heavy cruisers, four light cruisers, 12 destroyers, one destroyer escort, over 600 planes, and 10,500 sailors and pilots. The Allied forces, on the other hand, lost one light carrier, two escort carriers, two destroyers, one destroyer escort, around 200 planes, and a little more than a thousand men. As a result of this devastating blow, Japan never again launched a major naval offensive.

One morning two of the surviving crew members on the Nevada, Lt. Lawrence Gray and CPO Daniel Folsom, came aboard and opened a compartment test cap which allowed the poisonous gas to escape into an unventilated access trunk space. They were overcome by the gas and died almost immediately. Four other crew members came to their aid. They, too, were poisoned but managed to survive the dose of toxic gas. Although the Japanese planes were long since gone, the aftermath of their vicious attack was still killing American sailors.

Of the 337 Arizona crew members who survived the attack, about two thirds were not aboard the Arizona that morning. They were ashore on liberty, staying in the Bachelor Officer Quarters on Ford Island, or temporarily assigned to other stations. Of the dead, more than nine hundred officers, sailors, and Marines—from Rear Admiral Isaac Kidd to just-reported-aboard Private Leo Amundson—remain entombed in the sunken hull of the Arizona.

Not that they prefer rum. I never knew a sailor, in my life, who would not prefer a pot of hot coffee or chocolate, in a cold night, to all the rum afloat. They all say that rum only warms them for a time; yet, if they can get nothing better, they will miss what they have lost. The momentary warmth and glow from drinking it; the break and change which is made in a long, dreary watch by the mere calling all hands aft and serving of it out; and the simply having some event to look forward to, and to talk about; give it an importance and a use which no one can appreciate who has not stood his watch before the mast. On my passage round Cape Horn before, the vessel that I was in was not under temperance articles, and grog was served out every middle and morning watch, and after every reefing of topsails; and though I had never drank rum before, and never intend to again, I took my allowance then at the capstan, as the rest did, merely for the momentary warmth it gave the system, and the change in our feelings and aspect of our duties on the watch.

I spent most of the morning surveying the perimeter, wading in and out of the trees. I noted mushroom rings and unusual moss patterns, the folds in the land where flowers grew thick and the places where they slid from one color to another, and those trees which seemed darker and cruder than the others, as if they had drunk a substance other than water. An odd mist billowed from a little hollow cupped within the rugged ground; this I discovered to be a hot spring. Above it, upon a rocky ledge, were several wooden figurines, some half overgrown with moss. There was also a small pile of what I recognized as rock caramels, the slaty-sweet Ljosland candies that several of the sailors had favored.

The sky bleeds red as the sun hits the clouds. “You know what they say about red skies in the morning,” Derek says. “The only sailors that need to take warning are nowhere near the sea,” I reply with a smile. “But they are about to be drowning in their own blood.

Scott! This is the queerest bag of wheat I've ever seen! It's all lumpy-like, but the label says it's to go to Cranberry." The other sailors looked at the bag too, and my father, who was in the bag, of course, tried even harder to look like a bag of wheat. Then another sailor felt the bag and he just happened to get hold of my father's elbow. "I know what this is," he said. "This is a bag of dried corn on the cob," and he dumped my father into the big net along with the bags of wheat. This all happened in the late afternoon, so late that the merchant in Cranberry who had ordered the wheat didn't count his bags until the next morning. (He was a very punctual man, and never late for dinner.) The sailors told the captain, and the captain wrote down on a piece of paper, that they had delivered one hundred and sixty bags

Joe George, so I heard, had liberty that Friday night as well and was slated to fight in a “smoker.” Smokers were boxing matches held at the recreation center in Honolulu. If you won, you wouldn’t get money, which was against Navy rules, but you could receive a gift of some sort, such as a watch. You would then turn around and sell the watch, often to the very person who gave it to you. George did that a lot. After the smoker, he celebrated his win by getting drunk, which led to a fight with one of his own shipmates. Well, Shore Patrol came and broke up the fight, then took George to the ship’s brig. The next morning he was escorted to the captain’s mast to face Captain Young. The captain was so angry to see George disgrace his ship again and bring dishonor to his shipmates, he lashed out at him. “I wish I could take you to the forecastle and have all hands kick the shit out of you. But since I can’t, I’m going to give you a summary court-martial.” Joe was immediately put on report and sentenced to become a prisoner at large—PAL, for short—which meant he didn’t have to do time in the brig; he only had to be watched and restricted by the ship’s master-of-arms, who happened to be a friend. And so, on the night of December 6, instead of being locked belowdecks in the brig, he spent it sleeping under the stars in the forecastle.

The next morning the Arizona took on a full load of fuel oil, nearly 1.5 million gallons, in preparation for her upcoming trip to Bremerton. The trade winds blew steadily over the island that morning, but the heavy smell of oil still lingered. Besides that, the ship held 180,000 gallons of aviation fuel for the scouting planes it had on board and over a million pounds of gunpowder in the forward magazines for the big guns. There was enough fuel on board to get us to Japan, and nearly enough firepower to sink the entire Imperial Fleet, should Hirohito be foolhardy enough to fire so much as a round across our bow.

For it is a fact that man can be profoundly out of step with his times. A man may have been born in a city famous for its idiosyncratic culture and yet, the very habits, fashions, and ideas that exalt that city in the eyes of the world may make no sense to him at all. As he proceeds through life, he looks about in a state of confusion, understanding neither the inclinations nor the aspirations of his peers. For such a fellow, forget any chance of romance or professional success; those are the provenance of men in step with their times. Instead, for this fellow the options will be to bray like a mule or find what solace he can from overlooked volumes discovered in overlooked bookshops. And when his roommate stumbles home at two in the morning, he has little choice but to listen in silent mystification as he is recounted the latest dramas from the city’s salons. But events can unfold in such a manner that overnight the man out of step finds himself in the right place at the right time. The fashions and attitudes that had seemed so alien to him are suddenly swept aside and supplanted by fashions and attitudes in perfect sympathy with his deepest sentiments. Then, like a lone sailor adrift for years on alien seas, he wakes one night to discover familiar constellations overhead. And when this occurs - this extraordinary realignment of the stars - the man so long out of step with his times experiences a supreme lucidity. Suddenly all that has passed comes into focus as a necessary course of events, and all that promises to unfold has the clearest rhyme and reason.

The Lee Shore" Wheel gull spin and glide ... you've got no place to hide 'Cause you don't need one All along the lee shore shells lie scattered in the sand Winking up like shining eyes at me, from the sea Here is one like sunrise older than you know It's still lying there where some careless wave Forgot it long ago When I awoke this morning Dove beneath my floating home Down below her graceful side In the turning tide To watch the sea fish roam And there I heard a story From the sailors of the Sandra Marie There's another island a day's run away from here It's empty and free From here to Venezuela nothing more to see Than a hundred thousand islands Flung like jewels upon the sea For you and me Sunset smells of dinner Women are calling at me to end my tales But perhaps I'll see you the next quiet place I furl my sails 4 Way Street (1971)

As a young man, the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre served as a sailor on a trading ship. One cold and stormy night the ship put into the port of Hamburg, Germany. Sartre got off the ship and made his way through the rainy windswept streets to the shelter of a seedy bar. He sat down at a table and ordered a drink. After a while a beautiful woman made her way towards his table, introduced herself and sat down next to him. They began to talk. Finally, after quite some time, the woman excused herself to go to the bathroom. As he sat alone, anticipating her return, Sartre imagined the night that he and the woman would spend together in a hotel room, the seduction, the sex, and ultimately their farewell the next morning. He imagined the letters they would send to one another in anticipation of reunion. He envisioned the story that lay ahead of them. Suddenly, as he awaited her return from the bathroom, Sartre experienced an epiphany. He realized that every moment of his life, including this one, offered a choice. He could either choose to live his life in the fabricated fiction of a story, or to embrace the discontinuous blips and bleeps of human existence and live without the security of a story. All at once Sartre made the decision. He stood up and walked out of the bar and into the storm and never saw the woman again.

shall never forget that night of September in which the veil that concealed from me my own incredulity was torn. I hear again my steps in the narrow, naked chamber where, long after the hour of sleep had come, I had the habit of walking up and down Anxiously I followed my thoughts as they descended from layer to layer towards the foundation of my consciousness, scattering one by one all the illusions that until then had screened its windings from my view, making them at every moment more clearly visible. Vainly I clung to these last beliefs as a shipwrecked sailor clings to the fragments of his vessel, vainly, frightened at the unknown void into which I was about to float. I turned with them towards my childhood, my family, my country, all that was dear and sacred to me; the inflexible current of my thought was too strong—parents, family, memory, beliefs—it forced me to let go of everything. The investigation went on more obstinate and more severe as it drew near its term, and it did not stop until the end was reached. I knew then that in the depth of my mind, nothing was left that stood erect. This moment was a frightful one, and when towards morning, I threw myself exhausted on my bed, I seemed to feel my earlier life, so smiling and so full, go out like a fire, and before me another life opened, sombre and unpeopled, where in future I must live alone, alone with my fatal thought that had exiled me there, and which I was tempted to curse. The days that followed this were the saddest days of my life.

northern England in the nineteenth century, the following terms have been used in this book: Breakfast: The meal eaten upon rising each morning. Dinner: The meal eaten around midday. This may be a hot or cold meal depending on the day of the week and a person’s occupation. Tea: Not to be confused with the high tea of the aristocracy or the beverage of the same name, tea was the meal eaten at the end of the working day, typically around five or six o’clock. This could either be a hot or cold meal.

I'm not going to Wichita,' Vladimir said, the word 'Wichita' rendered by his accent as the most foreign word imaginable in the English language. 'I’m going to live with Fran and it’s going to be all right. You’re going to make it all right.' But even as he was laying down the law, his hands were shaking to the point where it was hard to keep the shabby pay-phone receiver properly positioned between his mouth and ear. Teardrops were blurring the corners of his eyes and he felt the need to have Baobab hear him burst out in a series of long, convulsive sobs, Roberta-style. All he had wanted was twenty thousand lousy dollars. It wasn’t a million. It was how much Dr. Girshkin made on average from two of his nervous gold-toothed patients. 'Okay,' Baobab said. 'Here’s how we’re going to do it. These are the new rules. Memorize them or write them down. Do you have a pen? Hello? Okay, Rule One: you can’t visit anyone—friends, relatives, work, nothing. You can only call me from a pay phone and we can’t talk for more than three minutes.' He paused. Vladimir imagined him reading this from a little scrap of paper. Suddenly Baobab said, under his breath: 'Tree, nine-thirty, tomorrow.' 'The two of us can never meet in person,' he was saying loudly now. 'We will keep in touch only by phone. If you check into a hotel, make sure you pay cash. Never pay by credit card. Once more: Tree, nine-thirty, tomorrow.' Tree. Their Tree? The Tree? And nine-thirty? Did he mean in the morning? It was hard to imagine Baobab up at that unholy hour. 'Rule Five: I want you to keep moving at all times, or at least try to keep moving. Which brings us to…' But just as Rule Six was about to come over the transom, there was a tussle for the phone and Roberta came on the line in her favorite Bowery harlot voice, the kind that smelled like gin nine hundred miles away. 'Vladimir, dear, hi!' Well, at least someone was enjoying Vladimir’s downfall. 'Say, I was thinking, do you have any ties with the Russian underworld, honey?' Vladimir thought of hanging up, but the way things were going even Roberta’s voice was a distinctly human one. He thought of Mr. Rybakov’s son, the Groundhog. 'Prava,' he muttered, unable to articulate any further. An uptown train rumbled beneath him to underscore the underlying shakiness of his life. Two blocks downtown, a screaming professional was being tossed back and forth between two joyful muggers. 'Prava, how very now!' Roberta said. 'Laszlo’s thinking of opening up an Academy of Acting and the Plastic Arts there. Did you know that there are thirty thousand Americans in Prava? At least a half dozen certified Hemingways among them, wouldn’t you agree?' 'Thank you for your concern, Roberta. It’s touching. But right now I have other… There are problems. Besides, getting to Prava… What can I do?… There’s an old Russian sailor… An old lunatic… He needs to be naturalized.' There was a long pause at this point and Vladimir realized that in his haste he wasn’t making much sense. 'It’s a long story…' he began, 'but essentially… I need to… Oh God, what’s wrong with me?' 'Talk to me, you big bear!' Roberta encouraged him. 'Essentially, if I get this old lunatic his citizenship, he’ll set me up with his son in Prava.' 'Okay, then,' Roberta said. 'I definitely can’t get him his citizenship.' 'No,' Vladimir concurred. 'No, you can’t.' What was he doing talking to a sixteen-year-old? 'But,' Roberta said, 'I can get him the next best thing…

Our forecastle, as usual after a liberty-day, was a scene of tumult all night long, from the drunken ones. They had just got to sleep toward morning, when they were turned up with the rest, and kept at work all day in the water, carrying hides, their heads aching so that they could hardly stand. This is sailor's pleasure.

Red sky in the morning, sailors take warning,