Sometimes this circle was dark and traced all round its clean-cut inexorable line which stopped at the first stars in the sky. Sometimes the immense contour was softened by mists which mingled sea and sky together; and then it seemed as if we were sailing in a kind of grey-blue globe, spangled with stars, and the wonder was that we never encountered its fugitive walls. The expanse was full of the soft sounds of water; it rustled continuously and to infinity, but in a restrained and almost silent manner; it gave out a powerful, unseizable sound, such as might be made by an orchestra of thousands of strings touched by bows very, very lightly and with great mystery. At times, the southern stars shone out with surprising brilliancy; the great nebulæ sparkled like a dust of mother-of-pearl, all the colours of the night seemed to be illumined, in transparency, by strange lights. One might have imagined oneself, at these moments, in a fairyland where everything was lit up for some immense apotheosis; and one asked oneself: "What is the meaning of all this splendour, what is going to happen, what is the matter?" . . . But no, there was nothing, ever; it was simply the region of the tropics and this was its way. There was nothing but the deserted seas, and everlastingly the circular expanse, absolutely empty. . . . These nights were indeed exquisite summer nights, mild, infinitely mild, milder than the mildest of our nights of June. And they troubled a little all these men, the eldest of whom was not yet thirty years of age. The warm darkness brought thoughts of love which were not of their seeking. There were moments when they came near to weakening again in a troubling dream; they felt the need of opening their arms to some desired human form, of clasping it with a strong and forceful infinite tenderness. But no, no one, nothing. . . . It was necessary to pull themselves together, to remain alone, to turn over on the hard planks of the wooden deck, and to think of something else, to begin to sing again. . . . And then the songs, merry or sad, rang out more strongly than before, in the emptiness of the sea. Nevertheless it was very pleasant on this forecastle during these evenings at sea. The fresh wind of the night blew in our faces, the virgin breezes which had never passed over land, which bore no living effluvium, which were without odour. Lying there, one lost little by little all notion of time and place, all notion of everything but speed, which is always a pleasing thing, even when you are without a goal and know not whither you are going.