Short Fiction, Aleksandr Kuprin [the speed reading book txt] 📗

the scaphander, everyone was struck by the expression of terror which had distorted his pale face and whitened his eyes. They stripped the diver of his clothes, made him swallow a few gulps of cognac, and did all they could to soothe him. For a long time his jaws clattered, and he could not say a word. Finally he came to himself and said:

“Basta! I don’t go down any more! I have seen.⁠ ⁠…”

Until his dying hour he told no one what sight or hallucination had shaken his mind so fearfully. If the conversation turned to that subject he became sulkily silent and left the company at once.⁠ ⁠… And he kept his word: never again did he go down to the bottom of the sea.

V

There were about fifteen sailors aboard the Genova. They all lived on the steamer and seldom went ashore. Their relations with the Balaklava fishermen remained distant and coldly polite. Only Kolya Konstandi greeted them good-naturedly from time to time:

“Bona giorna, signori. Vino rosso.⁠ ⁠…”

These gay young southern lads must have felt very lonesome at Balaklava after their visits to Rio Janeiro, Madagascar, Ireland, Africa, and many lively ports of the European Continent. At sea, constant danger and the straining of all one’s forces; ashore, wine, women, singing, dancing, and a good fight⁠—this is the life of a true seaman. But Balaklava is only a tiny, quiet place, a narrow, pale-blue inlet, lost amidst naked cliffs, with several dozen shanties perched on them. The wine here is sour and strong⁠—as for women, there are none for the amusement of a gallant seaman. The Balaklava wives and daughters lead a reserved and chaste life. Their only diversion is a leisurely chat at the fountain, where housewives come to fill their jars with water. Men, even close friends or relatives, avoid calling on one another at home, preferring to meet in a coffeehouse or on the landing.

Once, however, the fishermen rendered the Italians’ a small service. There was on the Genova a steam-launch with an old, very poor engine. Several sailors, under the command of the assistant captain, went out into the open sea in this launch. But, as often happens in the Black Sea, a strong gale began blowing from the land and drove the frail craft into the open sea with increasing speed. For a long time the Italians refused to give up: for an hour they struggled with the wind and the waves, and it was nerve-racking to watch from the rocks the tiny cockleshell, crowned with a tail of smoke; now it appeared on the crests of the waves, now it disappeared completely, as if foundering in the waves. The launch could not overcome the wind, and it was driven farther and farther out to sea. At last, those who watched the boat from the Genoese fortress noticed a white rag hoisted on the smokestack. In the language of signals it meant: “Am in danger.” Two of the best Balaklava barks, Russia’s Glory and Svyetlana, at once set sail and made seaward.

Two hours later they towed in the launch. The Italians were somewhat crestfallen, and poked fun at their own situation in a rather constrained manner. The fishermen, too, cracked jokes, but with an air of marked superiority.

Sometimes, while catching flat fish or white sturgeon, the fishermen happened to hook a sea-cat⁠—a species of electric ray. With all necessary precaution, the fishermen would take it off and throw it overboard. But someone, probably that student of the Italian language, Kolya, spread a rumor that Italians consider the sea-cat one of the choicest of dainties. Frequently after that, a fisherman on his way back from the sea would shout as he passed the steamer:

“Italiano, signoro! Take this for your lunch!”

The round, flat electric ray would shoot through the air and fall on the deck with a heavy thud. The Italians laughed, showing their magnificent teeth, shook their heads good-naturedly, and mumbled something in their own tongue. They probably thought that the sea-cat is considered the finest local dainty and they did not wish to insult the good fishermen by rejecting their offering.⁠ ⁠…

VI

Two weeks after their arrival, the Italians built and launched a large raft, on which they placed a steam-engine, an air-pumping machinery. The long shaft of a crane, like a huge fishing-rod, rose slantingly over the raft. Once, on a Sunday, Salvatore Trama was lowered for the first time into the water of the bay. He wore the ordinary gray rubber suit of a diver, in which he appeared larger than usual, shoes with leaden soles, and iron shirtfront on his chest, and a round brass helmet which encased his head. He walked on the bottom of the bay for about half an hour, and his road was marked by a mass of air-bubbles which welled up to the surface. And a week later all Balaklava learned that on the following day the diver was to go down at the White Stones, to the depth of a hundred yards. And when on that morrow the small, miserable launch towed the raft to the mouth of the bay, almost all the fishermen’s barks which were stationed in the bay were waiting at the White Stones.

The main advantage of Mr. Restucci’s invention was that it enabled a diver to reach a depth at which a man in an ordinary scaphander would be crushed by the tremendous pressure of the water. It was with surprise and, at any rate, with a feeling of deep respect that our fishermen watched the preparations which were being made before their eyes. First the steam crane lifted up and set down a strange case which resembled slightly the human figure deprived of its head and arms. It was made of a thick sheet of copper, on the outside covered with pale-blue enamel. Then this scaphander was opened like a gigantic cigar-case, in which, instead of a cigar, a human body