Free The Counterfeiters by André Gide

she said. (She had put on crimson and silver lamé pyjamas.) “I remember once, when I was quite a little girl at San Francisco, I was put into black because a sister of my mother’s had died—an old aunt whom I had never seen. I cried the whole day long. I was terribly, terribly sad; I thought that I was very unhappy and that I was grieving deeply for my aunt’s death—all because I was in black. Nowadays, if men are more serious than women, it’s because their clothes are darker. I’ll wager that your thoughts are quite different from what they were a little while ago. Sit down there on the bed; and when you’ve drunk a glass of vodka and a cup of tea and eaten two or three sandwiches, I’ll tell you a story. Say when I’m to begin.… ”
    She settled down on the rug beside the bed, crouching between Vincent’s legs like an Egyptian statue, with her chin resting on her knees. When she had eaten and drunk, she began:
    “I was on the
Bourgogne
, you know, on the day of the wreck. I was seventeen, so now you know how old I am. I was a very good swimmer, and to show you that I’m not hard-hearted, I’ll tell you that if my first thought was to save myself, my second was to save someoneelse. I’m not quite sure even whether it wasn’t my first. Or rather, I don’t think I thought of anything; but nothing disgusts me so much in such moments as the people who only think of themselves—oh, yes—the women who scream. There was a first boatload, chiefly of women and children, and some of them yelled to such an extent that it was enough to make anyone lose his head. The boat was so badly handled that instead of dropping down onto the sea straight, it dived nose foremost and everyone in it was flung out before it even had time to fill with water. The whole scene took place by the light of torches and lanterns and searchlights. You can’t imagine how ghastly it was. The waves were very big and everything that was not in the light was lost in darkness on the other side of the hill of water.
    “I have never lived more intensely; but I was as incapable of reflection as a Newfoundland dog, I suppose, when he jumps into the water. I can’t even understand now what happened; I only know that I had noticed a little girl in the boat—a darling thing of about five or six; and when I saw the boat overturn, I immediately made up my mind that it was her I would save. She was with her mother, but the poor woman was a bad swimmer; and as usual in such cases, her skirts hampered her. As for me, I expect I undressed mechanically; I was called to take my place in the second boatload. I must have got in; and then I no doubt jumped straight into the sea out of the boat; all I can remember is swimming about for a long time with the child clinging to my neck. It was terrified and clutched me so tight that I couldn’t breathe. Luckily the people in the boat saw us and either waited for us or rowed towards us. But that’s not why I’m telling you this story. The recollection which remains most vividly with me and which nothing will ever efface from my mind and my heart is this— There were about forty or so of us in the boat, all crowded together, for a number of swimmershad been picked up at the last gasp like me. The water was almost on a level with the edge of the boat. I was in the stern and I was holding the little girl I had just saved tightly pressed against me to warm her—and to prevent her from seeing what I couldn’t help seeing myself—two sailors, one armed with a hatchet and the other with a kitchen chopper. And what do you think they were doing?… They were hacking off the fingers and hands of the swimmers who were trying to get into our boat. One of these two sailors (the other was a Negro) turned to me, as I sat there, my teeth chattering with cold and fright and horror, and said, ‘If another single one gets in we shall be bloody well done for. The boat’s full.’ And he added that it was a thing that had