The only thing that exists is the sea, and a barque as tiny as a man’s body, with Mind as captain. This captain stands in his osseous cabin. Both male and female, he sows and gives birth; gives birth to the world’s sorrows and joys, its beauties, virtues, adventures, all its bloody, beloved phantasmagoria. He stands motionless with his eyes fixed in the direction of death’s cataract, which drags his little barque toward it and insatiably pays out its five famished tentacles over land and sea. “Whatever we’ve still time for,” he cries, “whether a glass of cool water, a breeze on our temples, a
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