Spasmodically, at the reading of an important communiqué or wireless messages, discussions burst forth and wax intense. For the thousandth time we sift over what has been said, and as all the arguments were laid on the table eight months ago, no one can win in the encounter unless he can shout louder than the others. The president of the mess, cool and benevolent, throws himself into the fray, and his advice makes us see the inanity of such disputes. The officers understand that he is right. Better to keep out of it. Silence falls again. While awaiting his watch, the officer returns to his cabin and tries to forget his troubles. Shall he write to his dear ones? What for, and what shall he say to them? Everyone devotes himself to some mechanical task. This one is learning Spanish, Greek, Japanese; others are measuring their strength on the Ethics of Spinoza, or the theory of the equations of partial derivatives; some are doing carving, collecting stamps or raising turtles. The essential thing is to get a man’s mind away from the ship, from the water, from himself. The night, solitary, kindly, ends with the dawn. Sleep effaces everything, and our duty transforms us into automatons. On the bridge the officer no longer thinks of anything but his superior duties. Near him stand watching the accustomed statues of gunners and steersmen; under him gently vibrates the moving vessel; and all around stretch the silent shadows. Above his head wings like felt open and close, and form rings of sound. They are the horned owls, migratory birds too, which have substituted our masts for their native nests. Frightened, they wheel above the watchers, and their hairy wings sometimes brush our caps. In the blackness of the sky, they fly uncertainly about, hiding the stars and then disclosing them again. Their flight and their silence are congenial to our thoughts. For them the sun does not exist, any more than happiness exists for us. Perhaps they would like the light, but their blinking eyes cannot endure it. They are like our own hearts. For months past we have lost all the joys of life, and dare no longer look them in the face. _17 March._ After four hours of anxious thought and watching, the officer leaves his successor in charge and goes down to his cabin or the ward-room. He is too wide awake to fall quickly asleep, too tired to think. The cruiser is like a castle of the Sleeping Beauty. In the labyrinth of ladders, doors and passages, black holes alternate with the shadows from dim lamps. On each side of the corridors are the rows of closed doors leading to the cabins where the officers and the boatswains toss between insomnia and bad dreams. A smoky light reveals the suspended hammocks. After their hard work the sailors fling themselves down there and sleep just as they fall; their dangling hands and knees are covered with coaldust; many of the faces seem masked in black.