The Toilers of the Sea

by Victor Hugo

Clubin really believed that he had been ill-used. Why had he not been born rich? He would have liked nothing better than to inherit from his parents an income of a hundred thousand pounds a year. Why had he not? It was not his fault. Why, because he had not been given all the pleasures of life, was he compelled to work: that is, to deceive, and betray, and destroy? Why had he thus been condemned to this torture of flattering, toadying, and trying to please others, of struggling to make himself liked and respected, and of having all the time to wear a false face over his own?

There was nothing before him but death from cold and hunger. His seventy-five thousand francs would not bring him a mouthful of bread. All his carefully contrived plans had ended in this disaster. He had labored to bring about his own catastrophe. There was no way out, no hope of salvation.

Strangely, there is a certain confidence in hypocrisy. The hypocrite trusts in some obscure element in the unknown that permits evil.

Both men had an air of gravity, but of different kinds of gravity. The old man had what might be called the gravity of his position, the young one the gravity of his nature. One comes from a man’s dress, the other from his mind.

To multiply his remaining money tenfold he need only take shares in the great company that was developing plantations in Texas, employing more than twenty thousand slaves. “I want nothing to do with slavery,” said Lethierry. “Slavery,” replied Dr. Hérode, “was instituted by divine authority. It is written: If a master smites his slave he shall not be punished, for it is his money.”

The deputy viscount was an officer of considerable standing; he was present, as the representative of His Majesty, at meetings of the Court of Chief Pleas, at the deliberations of the Cohue, and at executions. Lethierry looked Dr. Hérode in the eye. “I am against hanging,” he said. The reverend doctor had hitherto spoken in the same level tone, but now his voice took on a new and sharper intonation: “Mess Lethierry, the death penalty has been divinely ordained. God has given man the sword. It is written: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

“What this man says is put in his mouth.” “By whom? By what?” asked the Reverend Jaquemin in the same tone. “By his conscience,” whispered the Reverend Ebenezer. Dr. Hérode felt in his pocket, brought out a small, thick volume closed with clasps, laid it on the table, and said: “There is your conscience.” The book was the Bible.

Gilliatt, like all good seamen, was precise and careful in his movements. He never wasted his strength. His effort was always proportionate to the work in hand. Hence the prodigies of strength that he achieved with muscles of merely ordinary power. His biceps were no stronger than anyone else’s, but he had a heart that others lacked. To strength, which is a physical quality, he added energy, which is a moral quality.

No creature without wings had ever before found a footing there.

To do good work and have a good meal are two of the joys of life. A full stomach is like a good conscience.

While he was asleep he thought that he was awake and living his life; when he woke up he thought he was asleep. And indeed he was now living in a dream.

Since the cavern was almost completely open to the sky, the smoke escaped freely, blackening the overhanging rock face. The rocks that had seemed forever destined to be lashed by foam now became acquainted with soot.

BOOK II THE LABOR I THE RESOURCES OF A MAN WHO HAS NOTHING

greatness is reserved for the man who is stubborn in pursuing the right course. Almost the whole secret of men of great heart is contained in one word: Perseverando.

Whether the objective be on earth or in heaven, the only thing that matters is to make for that objective; the former case is for Columbus, the latter for Jesus.

The refusal of the soul to yield to the weakness of the body is a source of immense power.

He saw the progress he was making in his work, and saw nothing else. He was wretched, but he did not know it. He was hallucinated by his objective, which he was within reach of achieving. He put up with all his sufferings, thinking only of one thing: forward! His work was going to his head. The human will is intoxicating. A man’s soul can make him drunk. Drunkenness of this kind is known as heroism.

Gilliatt was a kind of Job of the ocean. But he was a Job who struggled, a Job who fought and faced up to his trials, a Job who conquered, and—if such terms are not too grandiose for a poor seaman who fished...

Faith has a strange need for form: hence man’s various religions. Nothing is more distressing than a belief without shape.

Total ruin is like Waterloo; slow decline is St. Helena. Fate in the person of Wellington still retains some dignity; but how wretched when it takes the form of Hudson Lowe!209 Destiny becomes a dastard. We see the man who negotiated the treaty of Campo Formio210 reduced to haggling over a pair of silk stockings. This diminution of Napoleon had diminished Britain. A ruined man goes through both of these phases, Waterloo and St. Helena, reduced to the scale of everyday life.

They produce prints of Napoleon’s feats; but I prefer this to the Battle of Austerlitz. You are just out of your beds, good people. The Durande arrived while you were still asleep. While you are putting on your nightcaps and blowing out your candles there are others who are heroes. We are a lot of faint-hearts and do-nothings, coddling our rheumatism; but thankfully there are other daredevil characters who go out to where they are needed and do what has to be done.

At least you won’t be like almost all the shrews in the neighborhood who have married soldiers or priests, the men who kill and the men who lie.