“I come!”

“I come!” is Gwynplaine’s last declaration, repeated as he walks across the vessel toward the water after Dea’s death. The words give voice to his apparent response to Dea and become inseparable from his fatal movement into the void.

The Phrase and Its Repetition

Gwynplaine first cries “I come!” with his hands stretched upward toward the darkness. The brief declaration is followed not by an explanation but by movement: he crosses the deck as if summoned by a vision. The narrative then makes the phrase recur at the vessel’s edge, where he says, “I come,” said he; “Dea, behold, I come!” The second utterance names Dea directly and expands the first into an announced reunion.

From Utterance to Act

Between the two declarations, Gwynplaine advances slowly and without hesitation. He says that he follows Dea and understands the sign she is making; his gaze remains fixed on a point in the starless sky. The words therefore accompany a scene in which his attention appears directed beyond the visible deck, while the narrative keeps the physical danger unmistakable: the vessel’s side has no bulwark, and the abyss lies directly before him.

At the edge, the declaration becomes action. Gwynplaine takes one more step, falls into the water, and disappears calmly and silently. The ship continues on, and the river flows; the phrase’s promised arrival is thus fulfilled only as a death, not as a return to the living.

Narrative Significance

The repetition binds Gwynplaine’s final movement to Dea: her name turns “I come!” from a cry into an address. Its simple present tense gives the words the force of an immediate commitment, while the scene’s contrast between his apparent vision and the unseen water below preserves the tragic distance between what he believes he is approaching and what happens to him. The phrase is both farewell and fatal resolution, closing Gwynplaine’s story in the same breath with which he declares himself on his way to Dea.