SOMETIMES in the night-time Gilliatt woke and peered into the darkness.
       He felt a strange emotion.
       His eyes were opened upon the black night; the situation was dismal, full of disquietude.
       There is such a thing as the pressure of darkness.
       A strange roof of shadow; a deep obscurity, which no diver can explore; a light mingled with that obscurity, of a strange, subdued, and sombre kind; floating atoms of rays, like a dust of seeds or of ashes; millions of lamps but no illumining; a vast sprinkling of fire, of which no man knows the secret; a diffusion of shining points, like a drift of sparks arrested in their course; the disorder of the whirlwind, with the fixedness of death; a mysterious and abysmal depth; an enigma, at once showing and concealing its face; the Infinite in its mask of darkness-these are the synonyms of night. Its weight lies heavily on the soul of man.
       This union of all mysteries-the mystery of the Cosmos and the mystery of Fate-oppresses human reason.
       The pressure of darkness acts in inverse proportion upon different kinds of natures. In the presence of night man feels his own incompleteness. He perceives the dark void and is sensible of infirmity. It is like the vacancy of blindness. Face to face with night man bends, kneels, prostrates himself, crouches on the earth, crawls towards a cave, or seeks for wings. Almost always he shrinks from that vague presence of the Infinite Unknown. He asks himself what it is, he trembles and bows the head. Sometimes he desires to go to it.
       To go whither?
       He can only answer, "Yonder."
       But what is that? and what is there?
       This curiosity is evidently forbidden to the spirit of man; for all around him the roads which bridge that gulf are broken up or gone. No arch exists for him to span the Infinite. But there is attraction in forbidden knowledge, as in the edge of the abyss. Where the footstep cannot tread, the eye may reach; where the eye can penetrate no farther, the mind may soar. There is no man, however feeble or insufficient his resources, who does not essay. According to his nature he questions or recoils before that mystery. With some it has the effect of repressing; with others it enlarges the soul. The spectacle is sombre, indefinite.
       Is the night calm and cloudless? It is then a depth of shadow. Is it stormy? It is then a sea of cloud. Its limitless deeps reveal themselves to us, and yet baffle our gaze, close themselves against research, but open to conjecture. Its innumerable dots of light only make deeper the obscurity beyond. Jewels, scintillations, stars; existences revealed in the unknown universes; dread defiances to man's approach; landmarks of the infinite creation; boundaries there, where there are no bounds; sea-marks impossible, and yet real, numbering the fathoms of those infinite deeps. One microscopic glittering point; then another; then another; imperceptible, yet enormous. Yonder light is a focus; that focus is a star; that star is a sun; that sun is a universe; that universe is nothing. For all numbers are as zero in the presence of flee infinite.
       These worlds, which yet are nothing, exist. Through this fact we feel the difference which separates the being nothing from the not to be.
       All these vague imaginings, increased and intensified by solitude, weighed upon Gilliatt.
       He understood them little, but he felt them. His was a powerful intellect clouded; a great spirit wild and untaught.

book i. the history of a bad reputation.
   I. A Word Written on a White Page.
   II. The Bu de la Rue.
   III. For Your Wife: When You Marry.
   IV. An Unpopular Man.
   V. More Suspicious Facts about Gilliatt.
   VI. The Dutch Sloop.
   VII. A Fit Tenant for a Haunted House
   VIII. The Gild-holm-'ur Seat.
book ii. mess lethierry.
   I. A Troubled Life, but a Quiet Conscience.
   II. A Certain Predilection.
   III. Mess Lethierry's Vulnerable Part.
book iii. durande and deruchette.
   I. Prattle and Smoke.
   II. The Old Story of Utopia.
   III. Rantaine.
   IV. Continuation of the Story of Utopia.
   V. The "Devil Boat"
   VI. Lethierry's Exaltation.
   VII. The Same Godfather and the Same Patron Saint.
   VIII. "Bonnie Dundee."
   IX. The Man Who Discovered Rantaine's Character.
   X. Long Yarns.
   XI. Matrimonial Prospects.
   XII. An Anomaly in the Character of Lethierry.
   XIII. Thoughtlessness Adds a Grace to Beauty.
book iv. the bagpipe.
   I. Streaks of Fire in the Horizon.
   II. The Unknown UnfoldS Itself by Degrees.
   III. The Air "Bonnie Dundee" Finds an Echo on the Hill.
   IV. "A serenade by night may please a lady fair, But of uncle and of guardian let the troubadour beware. Unpublished Comedy
   V. A Deserved Success has Always its Detractors.
   VI. The Sloop "Cashmere" Saves a Shipwrecked Crew.
   VII. How an Idler Had the Good Fortune to be Seen by a Fisherman.
book v. the revolver.
   I. Conversations at the Jean Auberge.
   II. Clubin Observes Some One.
   III. Clubin Carries Away Something and Brings Back Nothing.
   IV. Pleinmont.
   V. The Birds'-Nesters
   VI. The Jacressade.
   VII. Nocturnal Buyers and Mysterious Sellers.
   VIII. A "Cannon" off the Red Ball and the Black.
   IX. Useful Information for Persons Who Expect or Fear the Arrival of Letters from Beyond Sea.
book vi. the drunken steersman and the sober captain.
   I. The Douvres.
   II. An Unexpected Flask of Brandy.
   III. Conversations Interrupted.
   IV. Captain Clubin Displays All His Great Qualities.
   V. Clubin Reaches the Crowning-Point of Glory.
   VI. The Interior of an Abyss Suddenly Revealed.
   VII. An Unexpected Denouement.
book vii. the danger of opening a book at random.
   I. The Pearl at the Foot of a Precipice.
   II. Much Astonishment on the Western Coast.
   III. A Quotation from the Bible.
book i. malicious gilliatt.
   I. The Place Which is Easy to Reach, but Difficult to Leave Again.
   II. A Catalogue of Disasters.
   III. Sound, but not Safe.
   IV. A Preliminary Survey.
   V. A Word Upon the Secret Co-operations of the Elements.
   VI. A Stable for the Horse.
   VII. A Chamber for the Voyager.
   VIII. Importunaeque Volucres.
   IX. The Rock, and How Gilliatt Used It.
   X. The Forge.
   XI. Discovery.
   XII. The Interior of an Edifice Under the Sea.
   XIII. What was Seen There, and What Perceived Dimly.
book ii. the labour.
   I. The Resources of One Who Has Nothing
   II. Preparations.
   III. Gilliatt's Masterpiece Comes to the Rescue of Lethierry.
   IV. Sub Re.
   V. Sub Umbra.
   VI. Gilliatt Places the Sloop in Readiness
   VII. Sudden Danger.
   VIII. Movement Rather than Progress.
   IX. A Slip Between Cup and Lip
   X. Sea-Warnings.
   XI. Murmurs in the Air.
book iii. the struggle.
   I. Extremes Meet.
   II. The Ocean Winds.
   III. The Noises Explained.
   IV. Turba Turma.
   V. Gilliatt's Alternatives.
   VI. The Combat.
book iv. pitfalls in the way.
   I. He Who is Hungry is Not Alone.
   II. The Monster.
   III. Another Kind of Sea-Combat.
   IV. Nothing is Hidden, Nothing Lost.
   V. The Fatal Difference Between Six Inches and Two Feet.
   VI. De Profundis ad Altum.
   VII. The Appeal is Heard.
book i. night and the moon.
   I. The Harbour Clock.
   II. The Harbour Bell Again.
book ii. gratitude and despotism.
   I. Joy Surrounded by Tortures.
   II. The Leathern Trunk.
book iii. the departure of the cashmere.
   I. The Havelet Near the Church.
   II. Despair Confronts Despair.
   III. The Forethought of Self-Sacrifice
   IV. "For Your Wife When You Marry."
   V. The Great Tomb.