o, sir. No!"

"Well, I don't blame you."

"It isn't that, Arif Bey. It isn't that. I'm very beholden to you ...
for your kindness ... and your patience.... I didn't know.... And I
thought I knew everything nearly, and am so ignorant.... Why until now I
didn't know even this--the sun shone so brightly, and life was so
pleasant, I thought that was the way of life.... But I was in love with
Fenzile.... And that was what made everything so wonderful ... in love
with the wife you gave me ... head over heels, sir ... just simply--head
over heels...."

PART FIVE

THE VALLEY OF THE BLACK PIG

Section 1

To him, for a long time now, the sea had been only water. All the
immense pelagic plain, dotted with ships; with bergs of ice, like
cathedrals; with waves that curled or swept in huge rhythms; with
currents defined in lines and whorls; with gulls that mewed and whales
that blew like pretty fountains; with the little Portuguese men-of-war;
with the cleaving of flying fish and the tumbling of dolphins, all this
was water. All this joyous green, this laughing white, the deep
reflective blue, the somber exquisite gray, was water. An infinity of
barrels of water, immense vats of water, water, wet water....

To him, for a long time now, a ship had been a means of keeping afloat
on water, of going from place to place. All its brave strakes, its
plunging bows, its healing beams, were wood, such as one makes a house
of, or a tinker's cart. All the miracle of sails; the steady foresail;
the sensitive jibs; the press canvas delicate as bubbles; the reliable
main; the bluff topsails; topgallants like eager horses; the
impertinent skysails; the jaunty moonraker, were just canvas stretched
on poles. All the pyramidal wonder of them, fore, main, and mizzen, were
not like a good rider's hands to a horse; compelling, coaxing, curbing
the wind, they were utilities. The spinning wheel was a mechanical
device. Port was left, and starboard only the right hand. The chiming of
the ship's bell was not an old sweet ceremony but a fallible thing, not
exact as the ticking of a cheap watch. And "The lights are burning
bright, sir," was not a paean of comfort, but a mechanical artisans'
phrase....

To him, for a long time now, they who went down to the sea in ships were
men only; men such as sell things in shops or scrub poorhouse floors, or
dig tracks for a railroad. The slovenly Achill man, who would face death
with a grin, the shamblin