You may be puzzled that I am able to give such a meticulous account of events, capturing the scenery as well as every word or gesture. There is no need for surprise. My memory is not exceptional, nor am I making things up. However, before I retire each night, it is my practice to jot down in a notebook the events, dialogues, ideas and possibilities that I encounter during the day or that my mind creates. It is these notes that I am copying from here.
The passengers were already seated at the luncheon table. Our place was next to the ship’s captain. The commander of the Ceylon was a thin man, or perhaps ‘slender’ is the word, with a very red face from which sprang a pair of white mutton-chop sideburns, like rough heather springing aggressively out of the earth.
Seated beside him were two eccentric characters: the Purser and Mr Colney, an employee of the British Post Office. The purser was so fat that he looked as if a group of generously proportioned men had squeezed themselves into a single merchant navy uniform. Mr Colney, on the other hand, was tall and thin, with a sharp, prominent nose, on the end of which perched the golden arc of his bureaucratic spectacles. The purser had one all-abiding obsession – the desire to become fluent in Brazilian Portuguese. He had travelled in Brazil and was full of admiration for Maranhão and Pará and for the great resources of the Brazilian Empire. Every five minutes or so, he would lean over to enquire about some subtlety of Brazilian pronunciation. Mr Colney, for his part, had a stutter and an odd compulsion to sing comical ditties. The other passengers included army officers going to take up their post in India, a few cheerful blonde young English ladies, a clergyman with twelve children, and two elderly philanthropists from the Society for the Education of Young Patagonians.
As soon as Captain Rytmel entered the dining room in the company of the Countess, a man struggling greedily with the carcass on his plate saw him, stood up and announced with loud good humour:
‘¡Viva Dios! It’s Captain Rytmel! Hail, dear friend! A thousand greetings! Hombre, you’re looking well, you’ve put on weight!’
He folded Rytmel in a robust embrace and gazed at him fondly with his large dark eyes. After a first brief moment of surprise, during which Captain Rytmel turned very pale, he hastened to shake the hand of the desperately beautiful woman seated next to that greedy, expansive Spaniard, who turned out to be a silk merchant, Don Nicazio Puebla by name.
The lady, whose name was Carmen, was from Cuba and was Don Nicazio’s second wife. She was tall and had a magnificent figure; her complexion reminded one of pale marble, her eyes of dark, watered satin, and the luxuriant ringlets of her hair were what Baudelaire would have described as ténèbres. She was dressed in black silk and wore a mantilla.
‘Were you in Gibraltar?’ asked Captain Rytmel.
‘No, in Cádiz, my friend,’ said Don Nicazio. ‘We arrived in Gibraltar yesterday. We’re on our way to Malta. Are you returning to India? Ah, Captain Rytmel, I’m sure you remember our time in Calcutta.’
‘Captain Rytmel,’ said Carmen with a frosty smile, ‘is very good at forgetting.’
We all studied Carmen Puebla with interest. The count thought her sublime, as did I, so much so that I whispered to the countess:
‘What a beautiful creature!’
‘Yes, she has the manners of an ill-bred statue,’ she replied drily.
I looked at the countess and laughed.
‘Cousin, please! She’s so adorable she should be made into a trinket to be attached to one’s watch chain. I shall definitely make off with her, here on the high seas, in one of the ship’s lifeboats; why, her every move is like distilled music! Oh, cousin, you must agree that she’s perfect… I say, old chap,’ I called to the count, ‘pass me the soda-siphon, will you, I need cooling off!’
Meanwhile, Captain Rytmel had sat down next to Carmen and was talking about India, about old friends in Calcutta, about journeys made together. The countess was not eating, she seemed upset.
‘I’m going up on deck,’ she announced abruptly. ‘Have them send me some tea, will you?’
When he saw her go, Rytmel got to his feet and asked the count:
‘Is the countess unwell?’
‘A little. She needs some fresh air. Go and keep her company and talk to her about India. I can’t possibly leave my curry…’
I wanted to stay where I was, opposite the magnificent Carmen, and therefore applied myself to my food. The captain had promptly picked up his peculiar Indian army headgear.
The Spanish woman turned pale when she saw him follow the Countess. A few moments later, she too rose to her feet, wrapped about her a broad silk cape rather like a burnous and went up on deck, leaning on a long walking cane with an ivory handle.
Luncheon had finished. The talk turned to India, to the theatre in Malta, to Lord Derby, to the Fenians. Growing bored, I took my leave of the ship’s captain and went up on deck to smoke a good cigar in the fresh sea breeze.
The countess was sitting on a bench on the stern deck, with Captain Rytmel beside her on a folding wicker stool.
Carmen was walking briskly up and down the deck. Occasionally, grasping the ropes to steady herself, she would climb onto the step that ran along the inside of the ship’s rail and stand looking out to sea, while her mantilla and cape billowed in the wind, giving her a sinuous, flowing silhouette reminiscent of the divinities with which the sculptors of earlier times used to decorate the prows of galleons.