To watch - first tipping up and up and up
until half the sky was hidden, then dipping down and down and down
until the gray and heaving sea seemed ready to leap over the side
and engulf us. So I decided to go below and jot down a few notes.
On arriving at my quarters I changed my mind again. I decided to
let the notes wait a while and turn in.
It is my usual custom when turning in to remove the left shoe as
well as the right one and to put on my pajamas; but the pajamas
were hanging on a hook away over on the opposite side of the
stateroom, which had suddenly grown large and wide and full of
great distances; and besides, I thought it was just as well to
have the left shoe where I could put my hand on it when I needed
it again. So I retired practically just as I was and endeavored,
as per the admonitions of certain friends, to lie perfectly flat.
No doubt this thing of lying flat is all very well for some people
- but suppose a fellow has not that kind of a figure?
Nevertheless, I tried. I lay as flat as I could, but the indisposition
persisted; in fact, it increased materially. The manner in which
my pajamas, limp and pendent from that hook, swayed and swung back
and forth became extremely distasteful to me; and if by mental
treatment I could have removed them from there I should assuredly
have done so. But that was impossible.
Along toward evening I began to think of food. I thought of it
not from its gastronomic aspect, but rather in the capacity of
ballast. I did not so much desire the taste of it as the feel of
it. So I summoned Lubly - he, at least, did not smile at me in
that patronizing, significant way - and ordered a dinner that
included nearly everything on the dinner card except Lubly's thumb.
The dinner was brought to me in relays and I ate it - ate it all!
This step I know now was ill-advised. It is true that for a short
time I felt as I imagine a python in a zoo feels when he is full
of guinea-pigs - sort of gorged, you know, and sluggish, and only
tolerably uncomfortable.
Then ensued the frightful denouement. It ensued almost without
warning. At the time I felt absolutely positive that I was seasick.
I would have sworn to it. If somebody had put a Bible on my chest
and held it there I would cheerfully have laid my right hand on
it and taken a solemn oath that I was seasick. Indeed,I believed
I was so seasick that I feared - hoped, rather - I might never
recover from it. All I desired at the moment was to get it over
with as quickly and as neatly as possible.
As in the case of drowning persons, there passed in review before
my eyes several of the more recent events of my past life - meals
mostly. I shall, however, pass hastily over these distressing
details, merely stating in parentheses, so to speak, that I did
not remember those string-beans at all. I was positive then, and
am yet, that I had not eaten string-beans for nearly a week. But
enough of this!
I was sure I was seasick; and I am convinced any inexperienced
bystander, had there been one there, would have been misled by my
demeanor into regarding me as a seasick person - but it was a wrong
diagnosis. The steward told me so himself when he called the next
morning. He came and found me stretched prone on the bed of
affliction; and he asked me how I felt, to which I replied with a
low and hollow groan - tolerably low and exceedingly hollow. It
could not have been any hollower if I had been a megaphone.
So he looked me over and told me that I had climate fever. We
were passing through the Gulf Stream, where the water was warmer
than elsewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, and I had a touch of climate
fever. It was a very common complaint in that latitude; many
persons suffered from it. The symptoms were akin to seasickness,
it was true; yet the two maladies were in no way to be confused.
As soon as we passed out of the Gulf Stream he felt sure I would
be perfectly well. Meantime he would recommend that I get Lubly
to take the rest of my things off and then remain perfectly quiet.
He was right about it too.
Regardless of what one may think oneself, one is bound to accept
the statement of an authority on this subject; and if a steward
on a big liner, who has traveled back and forth across the ocean
for years, is not an authority on climate fever, who is? I looked
at it in that light. And sure enough, when we had passed out of
the Gulf Stream and the sea had smoothed itself out, I made a
speedy and satisfactory recovery; but if it had been seasickness
I should have confessed it in a minute. I have no patience with
those who quibble and equivocate in regard to their having been
seasick.
I had one relapse - a short one, but painful. In an incautious
moment, when I wist not wot I wotted, I accepted an invitation
from the chief engineer to go below. We went below - miles and
miles, I think - to where, standing on metal runways that were hot
to the foot, overalled Scots ministered to the heart and the lungs
and the bowels of that ship.
