I saw him and I did not see him....

He exploded in a thousand bits, as though he had had a bomb within his body." And the shipwrecked man, obsessed by this recollection, could hardly attach any importance to the scenes following,--the struggle of the crowds to gain the boats, the efforts of the officers to maintain order, the death of many that, crazy with desperation, had thrown themselves into the sea, the tragic waiting huddled in barks that were with great difficulty lowered to the water, fearing a second shipwreck as soon as they touched the waves.
The steamer had disappeared in a few moments,--its prow sinking in the waters and then its smokestacks taking on a vertical position almost like the leaning tower of Pisa, and its rudders turning crazily as the shuddering ship went down.
The narrator began to be left alone.

Other shipwrecked folk, telling their doleful tales at the same time, were now attracting the curious.
Ferragut looked at this young man.

His physical type and his accent made him surmise that he was a compatriot.
"You are Spanish ?" The shipwrecked man replied affirmatively.
"A Catalan ?" continued Ulysses in the Catalan idiom.
A fresh oratorical vehemence galvanized the shipwrecked boy.

"The gentleman is a Catalan also ?"...