diff options
Diffstat (limited to 'old/aprjc10.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | old/aprjc10.txt | 4969 |
1 files changed, 4969 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/old/aprjc10.txt b/old/aprjc10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d38e15e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/aprjc10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4969 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Etext of A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad + +#11 in our series by Joseph Conrad + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. We need your donations. + + +A Personal Record + +by Joseph Conrad + +October 1996 [Etext #687] + + +Project Gutenberg's Etext of A Personal Record by Joseph Conrad +*****This file should be named aprjc10.txt or aprjc10.zip****** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, aprjc11.txt. +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, aprjc10a.txt. + + +This etext was created by Judith Boss, Omaha, Nebraska. + + +We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance +of the official release dates, for time for better editing. + +Please note: neither this list nor its contents are final till +midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement. +The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at +Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month. A +preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment +and editing by those who wish to do so. To be sure you have an +up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes +in the first week of the next month. Since our ftp program has +a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a +look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a +new copy has at least one byte more or less. + + +Information about Project Gutenberg (one page) + +We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work. The +fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take +to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright +searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc. This +projected audience is one hundred million readers. If our value +per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $4 +million dollars per hour this year as we release some eight text +files per month: thus upping our productivity from $2 million. + +The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext +Files by the December 31, 2001. [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion] +This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers, +which is 10% of the expected number of computer users by the end +of the year 2001. + +We need your donations more than ever! + +All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/IBC", and are +tax deductible to the extent allowable by law ("IBC" is Illinois +Benedictine College). (Subscriptions to our paper newsletter go +to IBC, too) + +For these and other matters, please mail to: + +Project Gutenberg +P. O. Box 2782 +Champaign, IL 61825 + +When all other email fails try our Michael S. Hart, Executive +Director: +hart@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu (internet) hart@uiucvmd (bitnet) + +We would prefer to send you this information by email +(Internet, Bitnet, Compuserve, ATTMAIL or MCImail). + +****** +If you have an FTP program (or emulator), please +FTP directly to the Project Gutenberg archives: +[Mac users, do NOT point and click. . .type] + +ftp uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu +login: anonymous +password: your@login +cd etext/etext90 through /etext96 +or cd etext/articles [get suggest gut for more information] +dir [to see files] +get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files] +GET INDEX?00.GUT +for a list of books +and +GET NEW GUT for general information +and +MGET GUT* for newsletters. + +**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor** +(Three Pages) + + +***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START*** +Why is this "Small Print!" statement here? You know: lawyers. +They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with +your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from +someone other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our +fault. So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement +disclaims most of our liability to you. It also tells you how +you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to. + +*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT +By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm +etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept +this "Small Print!" statement. If you do not, you can receive +a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by +sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person +you got it from. If you received this etext on a physical +medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request. + +ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS +This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG tm +etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor +Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at +Illinois Benedictine College (the "Project"). Among other +things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright +on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and +distribute it in the United States without permission and +without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth +below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext +under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark. + +To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable +efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain +works. Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any +medium they may be on may contain "Defects". Among other +things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other +intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged +disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer +codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. + +LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES +But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below, +[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this +etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including +legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR +UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT, +INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE +OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE +POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. + +If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of +receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) +you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that +time to the person you received it from. If you received it +on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and +such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement +copy. If you received it electronically, such person may +choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to +receive it electronically. + +THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS". NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS +TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT +LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A +PARTICULAR PURPOSE. + +Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or +the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the +above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you +may have other legal rights. + +INDEMNITY +You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors, +officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost +and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or +indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause: +[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification, +or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect. + +DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm" +You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by +disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this +"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg, +or: + +[1] Only give exact copies of it. Among other things, this + requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the + etext or this "small print!" statement. You may however, + if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable + binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form, + including any form resulting from conversion by word + processing or hypertext software, but only so long as + *EITHER*: + + [*] The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and + does *not* contain characters other than those + intended by the author of the work, although tilde + (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may + be used to convey punctuation intended by the + author, and additional characters may be used to + indicate hypertext links; OR + + [*] The etext may be readily converted by the reader at + no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent + form by the program that displays the etext (as is + the case, for instance, with most word processors); + OR + + [*] You provide, or agree to also provide on request at + no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the + etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC + or other equivalent proprietary form). + +[2] Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this + "Small Print!" statement. + +[3] Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the + net profits you derive calculated using the method you + already use to calculate your applicable taxes. If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Illinois + Benedictine College" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Illinois Benedictine College". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Note: I have omitted the running heads ["A FAMILIAR PREFACE" and +"A PERSONAL RECORD"], and have made the following changes to +the text: +PAGE LINE ORIGINAL CHANGED TO + 129 18 thinkin thinking + 176 8 now now. + 207 14 ful full. + + + + + +A PERSONAL RECORD + +BY JOSEPH CONRAD + + + + + + +A FAMILIAR PREFACE + +As a general rule we do not want much encouragement to talk about +ourselves; yet this little book is the result of a friendly +suggestion, and even of a little friendly pressure. I defended +myself with some spirit; but, with characteristic tenacity, the +friendly voice insisted, "You know, you really must." + +It was not an argument, but I submitted at once. If one must! . +. . + +You perceive the force of a word. He who wants to persuade +should put his trust not in the right argument, but in the right +word. The power of sound has always been greater than the power +of sense. I don't say this by way of disparagement. It is +better for mankind to be impressionable than reflective. Nothing +humanely great--great, I mean, as affecting a whole mass of +lives--has come from reflection. On the other hand, you cannot +fail to see the power of mere words; such words as Glory, for +instance, or Pity. I won't mention any more. They are not far +to seek. Shouted with perseverance, with ardour, with +conviction, these two by their sound alone have set whole nations +in motion and upheaved the dry, hard ground on which rests our +whole social fabric. There's "virtue" for you if you like! . . . +Of course the accent must be attended to. The right accent. +That's very important. The capacious lung, the thundering or the +tender vocal chords. Don't talk to me of your Archimedes' lever. + +He was an absent-minded person with a mathematical imagination. +Mathematics commands all my respect, but I have no use for +engines. Give me the right word and the right accent and I will +move the world. + +What a dream for a writer! Because written words have their +accent, too. Yes! Let me only find the right word! Surely it +must be lying somewhere among the wreckage of all the plaints and +all the exultations poured out aloud since the first day when +hope, the undying, came down on earth. It may be there, close +by, disregarded, invisible, quite at hand. But it's no good. I +believe there are men who can lay hold of a needle in a pottle of +hay at the first try. For myself, I have never had such luck. +And then there is that accent. Another difficulty. For who is +going to tell whether the accent is right or wrong till the word +is shouted, and fails to be heard, perhaps, and goes down-wind, +leaving the world unmoved? Once upon a time there lived an +emperor who was a sage and something of a literary man. He +jotted down on ivory tablets thoughts, maxims, reflections which +chance has preserved for the edification of posterity. Among +other sayings--I am quoting from memory--I remember this solemn +admonition: "Let all thy words have the accent of heroic truth." +The accent of heroic truth! This is very fine, but I am thinking +that it is an easy matter for an austere emperor to jot down +grandiose advice. Most of the working truths on this earth are +humble, not heroic; and there have been times in the history of +mankind when the accents of heroic truth have moved it to nothing +but derision. + +Nobody will expect to find between the covers of this little book +words of extraordinary potency or accents of irresistible +heroism. However humiliating for my self esteem, I must confess +that the counsels of Marcus Aurelius are not for me. They are +more fit for a moralist than for an artist. Truth of a modest +sort I can promise you, and also sincerity. That complete, +praise worthy sincerity which, while it delivers one into the +hands of one's enemies, is as likely as not to embroil one with +one's friends. + +"Embroil" is perhaps too strong an expression. I can't imagine +among either my enemies or my friends a being so hard up for +something to do as to quarrel with me. "To disappoint one's +friends" would be nearer the mark. Most, almost all, friend +ships of the writing period of my life have come to me through my +books; and I know that a novelist lives in his work. He stands +there, the only reality in an invented world, among imaginary +things, happenings, and people. Writing about them, he is only +writing about himself. But the disclosure is not complete. He +remains, to a certain extent, a figure behind the veil; a +suspected rather than a seen presence--a movement and a voice +behind the draperies of fiction. In these personal notes there is +no such veil. And I cannot help thinking of a passage in the +"Imitation of Christ" where the ascetic author, who knew life so +profoundly, says that "there are persons esteemed on their +reputation who by showing themselves destroy the opinion one had +of them." This is the danger incurred by an author of fiction +who sets out to talk about himself without disguise. + +While these reminiscent pages were appearing serially I was +remonstrated with for bad economy; as if such writing were a form +of self-indulgence wasting the substance of future volumes. It +seems that I am not sufficiently literary. Indeed, a man who +never wrote a line for print till he was thirty-six cannot bring +himself to look upon his existence and his experience, upon the +sum of his thoughts, sensations, and emotions, upon his memories +and his regrets, and the whole possession of his past, as only so +much material for his hands. Once before, some three years ago, +when I published "The Mirror of the Sea," a volume of impressions +and memories, the same remarks were made to me. Practical +remarks. But, truth to say, I have never understood the kind of +thrift they recommend. I wanted to pay my tribute to the sea, +its ships and its men, to whom I remain indebted for so much +which has gone to make me what I am. That seemed to me the only +shape in which I could offer it to their shades. There could not +be a question in my mind of anything else. It is quite possible +that I am a bad economist; but it is certain that I am +incorrigible. + +Having matured in the surroundings and under the special +conditions of sea life, I have a special piety toward that form +of my past; for its impressions were vivid, its appeal direct, +its demands such as could be responded to with the natural +elation of youth and strength equal to the call. There was +nothing in them to perplex a young conscience. Having broken +away from my origins under a storm of blame from every quarter +which had the merest shadow of right to voice an opinion, removed +by great distances from such natural affections as were still +left to me, and even estranged, in a measure, from them by the +totally unintelligible character of the life which had seduced me +so mysteriously from my allegiance, I may safely say that through +the blind force of circumstances the sea was to be all my world +and the merchant service my only home for a long succession of +years. No wonder, then, that in my two exclusively sea +books--"The Nigger of the Narcissus," and "The Mirror of the Sea" +(and in the few short sea stories like "Youth" and "Typhoon"--I +have tried with an almost filial regard to render the vibration +of life in the great world of waters, in the hearts of the simple +men who have for ages traversed its solitudes, and also that +something sentient which seems to dwell in ships--the creatures +of their hands and the objects of their care. + +One's literary life must turn frequently for sustenance to +memories and seek discourse with the shades, unless one has made +up one's mind to write only in order to reprove mankind for what +it is, or praise it for what it is not, or--generally--to teach +it how to behave. Being neither quarrelsome, nor a flatterer, +nor a sage, I have done none of these things, and I am prepared +to put up serenely with the insignificance which attaches to +persons who are not meddlesome in some way or other. But +resignation is not indifference. I would not like to be left +standing as a mere spectator on the bank of the great stream +carrying onward so many lives. I would fain claim for myself the +faculty of so much insight as can be expressed in a voice of +sympathy and compassion. + +It seems to me that in one, at least, authoritative quarter of +criticism I am suspected of a certain unemotional, grim +acceptance of facts--of what the French would call secheresse du +coeur. Fifteen years of unbroken silence before praise or blame +testify sufficiently to my respect for criticism, that fine +flower of personal expression in the garden of letters. But this +is more of a personal matter, reaching the man behind the work, +and therefore it may be alluded to in a volume which is a +personal note in the margin of the public page. Not that I feel +hurt in the least. The charge--if it amounted to a charge at +all--was made in the most considerate terms; in a tone of regret. + +My answer is that if it be true that every novel contains an +element of autobiography--and this can hardly be denied, since +the creator can only express himself in his creation--then there +are some of us to whom an open display of sentiment is repugnant. + +I would not unduly praise the virtue of restraint. It is often +merely temperamental. But it is not always a sign of coldness. +It may be pride. There can be nothing more humiliating than to +see the shaft of one's emotion miss the mark of either laughter +or tears. Nothing more humiliating! And this for the reason +that should the mark be missed, should the open display of +emotion fail to move, then it must perish unavoidably in disgust +or contempt. No artist can be reproached for shrinking from a +risk which only fools run to meet and only genius dare confront +with impunity. In a task which mainly consists in laying one's +soul more or less bare to the world, a regard for decency, even +at the cost of success, is but the regard for one's own dignity +which is inseparably united with the dignity of one's work. + +And then--it is very difficult to be wholly joyous or wholly sad +on this earth. The comic, when it is human, soon takes upon +itself a face of pain; and some of our griefs (some only, not +all, for it is the capacity for suffering which makes man August +in the eyes of men) have their source in weaknesses which must be +recognized with smiling com passion as the common inheritance of +us all. Joy and sorrow in this world pass into each other, +mingling their forms and their murmurs in the twilight of life as +mysterious as an over shadowed ocean, while the dazzling +brightness of supreme hopes lies far off, fascinating and still, +on the distant edge of the horizon. + +Yes! I, too, would like to hold the magic wand giving that +command over laughter and tears which is declared to be the +highest achievement of imaginative literature. Only, to be a +great magician one must surrender oneself to occult and +irresponsible powers, either outside or within one's breast. We +have all heard of simple men selling their souls for love or +power to some grotesque devil. The most ordinary intelligence +can perceive without much reflection that anything of the sort is +bound to be a fool's bargain. I don't lay claim to particular +wisdom because of my dislike and distrust of such transactions. +It may be my sea training acting upon a natural disposition to +keep good hold on the one thing really mine, but the fact is that +I have a positive horror of losing even for one moving moment +that full possession of my self which is the first condition of +good service. And I have carried my notion of good service from +my earlier into my later existence. I, who have never sought in +the written word anything else but a form of the Beautiful--I +have carried over that article of creed from the decks of ships +to the more circumscribed space of my desk, and by that act, I +suppose, I have become permanently imperfect in the eyes of the +ineffable company of pure esthetes. + +As in political so in literary action a man wins friends for +himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and by the +consistent narrowness of his outlook. But I have never been able +to love what was not lovable or hate what was not hateful out of +deference for some general principle. Whether there be any +courage in making this admission I know not. After the middle +turn of life's way we consider dangers and joys with a tranquil +mind. So I proceed in peace to declare that I have always +suspected in the effort to bring into play the extremities of +emotions the debasing touch of insincerity. In order to move +others deeply we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried +away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility--innocently +enough, perhaps, and of necessity, like an actor who raises his +voice on the stage above the pitch of natural conversation--but +still we have to do that. And surely this is no great sin. But +the danger lies in the writer becoming the victim of his own +exaggeration, losing the exact notion of sincerity, and in the +end coming to despise truth itself as something too cold, too +blunt for his purpose--as, in fact, not good enough for his +insistent emotion. From laughter and tears the descent is easy +to snivelling and giggles. + +These may seem selfish considerations; but you can't, in sound +morals, condemn a man for taking care of his own integrity. It +is his clear duty. And least of all can you condemn an artist +pursuing, however humbly and imperfectly, a creative aim. In +that interior world where his thought and his emotions go seeking +for the experience of imagined adventures, there are no +policemen, no law, no pressure of circumstance or dread of +opinion to keep him within bounds. Who then is going to say Nay +to his temptations if not his conscience? + +And besides--this, remember, is the place and the moment of +perfectly open talk--I think that all ambitions are lawful except +those which climb upward on the miseries or credulities of +mankind. All intellectual and artistic ambitions are +permissible, up to and even beyond the limit of prudent sanity. +They can hurt no one. If they are mad, then so much the worse +for the artist. Indeed, as virtue is said to be, such ambitions +are their own reward. Is it such a very mad presumption to +believe in the sovereign power of one's art, to try for other +means, for other ways of affirming this belief in the deeper +appeal of one's work? To try to go deeper is not to be +insensible. A historian of hearts is not a historian of +emotions, yet he penetrates further, restrained as he may be, +since his aim is to reach the very fount of laughter and tears. +The sight of human affairs deserves admiration and pity. They +are worthy of respect, too. And he is not insensible who pays +them the undemonstrative tribute of a sigh which is not a sob, +and of a smile which is not a grin. Resignation, not mystic, not +detached, but resignation open-eyed, conscious, and informed by +love, is the only one of our feelings for which it is impossible +to become a sham. + +Not that I think resignation the last word of wisdom. I am too +much the creature of my time for that. But I think that the +proper wisdom is to will what the gods will without, perhaps, +being certain what their will is--or even if they have a will of +their own. And in this matter of life and art it is not the Why +that matters so much to our happiness as the How. As the +Frenchman said, "Il y a toujours la maniere." Very true. Yes. +There is the manner. The manner in laughter, in tears, in irony, +in indignations and enthusiasms, in judgments--and even in love. +The manner in which, as in the features and character of a human +face, the inner truth is foreshadowed for those who know how to +look at their kind. + +Those who read me know my conviction that the world, the temporal +world, rests on a few very simple ideas; so simple that they must +be as old as the hills. It rests notably, among others, on the +idea of Fidelity. At a time when nothing which is not +revolutionary in some way or other can expect to attract much +attention I have not been revolutionary in my writings. The +revolutionary spirit is mighty convenient in this, that it frees +one from all scruples as regards ideas. Its hard, absolute +optimism is repulsive to my mind by the menace of fanaticism and +intolerance it contains. No doubt one should smile at these +things; but, imperfect Esthete, I am no better Philosopher. + +All claim to special righteousness awakens in me that scorn and +danger from which a philosophical mind should be free. . . . + +I fear that trying to be conversational I have only managed to be +unduly discursive. I have never been very well acquainted with +the art of conversation--that art which, I understand, is +supposed to be lost now. My young days, the days when one's +habits and character are formed, have been rather familiar with +long silences. Such voices as broke into them were anything but +conversational. No. I haven't got the habit. Yet this +discursiveness is not so irrelevant to the handful of pages which +follow. They, too, have been charged with discursiveness, with +disregard of chronological order (which is in itself a crime), +with unconventionality of form (which is an impropriety). I was +told severely that the public would view with displeasure the +informal character of my recollections. "Alas!" I protested, +mildly. "Could I begin with the sacramental words, 'I was born +on such a date in such a place'? The remoteness of the locality +would have robbed the statement of all interest. I haven't lived +through wonderful adventures to be related seriatim. I haven't +known distinguished men on whom I could pass fatuous remarks. I +haven't been mixed up with great or scandalous affairs. This is +but a bit of psychological document, and even so, I haven't +written it with a view to put forward any conclusion of my own." + +But my objector was not placated. These were good reasons for +not writing at all--not a defense of what stood written already, +he said. + +I admit that almost anything, anything in the world, would serve +as a good reason for not writing at all. But since I have +written them, all I want to say in their defense is that these +memories put down without any regard for established conventions +have not been thrown off without system and purpose. They have +their hope and their aim. The hope that from the reading of +these pages there may emerge at last the vision of a personality; +the man behind the books so fundamentally dissimilar as, for +instance, "Almayer's Folly" and "The Secret Agent," and yet a +coherent, justifiable personality both in its origin and in its +action. This is the hope. The immediate aim, closely associated +with the hope, is to give the record of personal memories by +presenting faithfully the feelings and sensations connected with +the writing of my first book and with my first contact with the +sea. + +In the purposely mingled resonance of this double strain a friend +here and there will perhaps detect a subtle accord. + +J. C. K. + + + + +A PERSONAL RECORD + +I + +Books may be written in all sorts of places. Verbal inspiration +may enter the berth of a mariner on board a ship frozen fast in a +river in the middle of a town; and since saints are supposed to +look benignantly on humble believers, I indulge in the pleasant +fancy that the shade of old Flaubert--who imagined himself to be +(among other things) a descendant of Vikings--might have hovered +with amused interest over the docks of a 2,000-ton steamer called +the Adowa, on board of which, gripped by the inclement winter +alongside a quay in Rouen, the tenth chapter of "Almayer's Folly" +was begun. With interest, I say, for was not the kind Norman +giant with enormous mustaches and a thundering voice the last of +the Romantics? Was he not, in his unworldly, almost ascetic, +devotion to his art, a sort of literary, saint-like hermit? + +"'It has set at last,' said Nina to her mother, pointing to the +hills behind which the sun had sunk." . . . These words of +Almayer's romantic daughter I remember tracing on the gray paper +of a pad which rested on the blanket of my bed-place. They +referred to a sunset in Malayan Isles and shaped themselves in my +mind, in a hallucinated vision of forests and rivers and seas, +far removed from a commercial and yet romantic town of the +northern hemisphere. But at that moment the mood of visions and +words was cut short by the third officer, a cheerful and casual +youth, coming in with a bang of the door and the exclamation: +"You've made it jolly warm in here." + +It was warm. I had turned on the steam heater after placing a +tin under the leaky water-cock--for perhaps you do not know that +water will leak where steam will not. I am not aware of what my +young friend had been doing on deck all that morning, but the +hands he rubbed together vigorously were very red and imparted to +me a chilly feeling by their mere aspect. He has remained the +only banjoist of my acquaintance, and being also a younger son of +a retired colonel, the poem of Mr. Kipling, by a strange +aberration of associated ideas, always seems to me to have been +written with an exclusive view to his person. When he did not +play the banjo he loved to sit and look at it. He proceeded to +this sentimental inspection, and after meditating a while over +the strings under my silent scrutiny inquired, airily: + +"What are you always scribbling there, if it's fair to ask?" + +It was a fair enough question, but I did not answer him, and +simply turned the pad over with a movement of instinctive +secrecy: I could not have told him he had put to flight the +psychology of Nina Almayer, her opening speech of the tenth +chapter, and the words of Mrs. Almayer's wisdom which were to +follow in the ominous oncoming of a tropical night. I could not +have told him that Nina had said, "It has set at last." He would +have been extremely surprised and perhaps have dropped his +precious banjo. Neither could I have told him that the sun of my +sea-going was setting, too, even as I wrote the words expressing +the impatience of passionate youth bent on its desire. I did not +know this myself, and it is safe to say he would not have cared, +though he was an excellent young fellow and treated me with more +deference than, in our relative positions, I was strictly +entitled to. + +He lowered a tender gaze on his banjo, and I went on looking +through the port-hole. The round opening framed in its brass rim +a fragment of the quays, with a row of casks ranged on the frozen +ground and the tail end of a great cart. A red-nosed carter in a +blouse and a woollen night-cap leaned against the wheel. An +idle, strolling custom house guard, belted over his blue capote, +had the air of being depressed by exposure to the weather and the +monotony of official existence. The background of grimy houses +found a place in the picture framed by my port-hole, across a +wide stretch of paved quay brown with frozen mud. The colouring +was sombre, and the most conspicuous feature was a little cafe +with curtained windows and a shabby front of white woodwork, +corresponding with the squalor of these poorer quarters bordering +the river. We had been shifted down there from another berth in +the neighbourhood of the Opera House, where that same port-hole +gave me a view of quite another soft of cafe--the best in the +town, I believe, and the very one where the worthy Bovary and his +wife, the romantic daughter of old Pere Renault, had some +refreshment after the memorable performance of an opera which was +the tragic story of Lucia di Lammermoor in a setting of light +music. + +I could recall no more the hallucination of the Eastern +Archipelago which I certainly hoped to see again. The story of +"Almayer's Folly" got put away under the pillow for that day. I +do not know that I had any occupation to keep me away from it; +the truth of the matter is that on board that ship we were +leading just then a contemplative life. I will not say anything +of my privileged position. I was there "just to oblige," as an +actor of standing may take a small part in the benefit +performance of a friend. + +As far as my feelings were concerned I did not wish to be in that +steamer at that time and in those circumstances. And perhaps I +was not even wanted there in the usual sense in which a ship +"wants" an officer. It was the first and last instance in my sea +life when I served ship-owners who have remained completely +shadowy to my apprehension. I do not mean this for the +well-known firm of London ship-brokers which had chartered the +ship to the, I will not say short-lived, but ephemeral +Franco-Canadian Transport Company. A death leaves something +behind, but there was never anything tangible left from the F. C. +T. C. It flourished no longer than roses live, and unlike the +roses it blossomed in the dead of winter, emitted a sort of faint +perfume of adventure, and died before spring set in. But +indubitably it was a company, it had even a house-flag, all white +with the letters F. C. T. C. artfully tangled up in a complicated +monogram. We flew it at our mainmast head, and now I have come +to the conclusion that it was the only flag of its kind in +existence. All the same we on board, for many days, had the +impression of being a unit of a large fleet with fortnightly +departures for Montreal and Quebec as advertised in pamphlets and +prospectuses which came aboard in a large package in Victoria +Dock, London, just before we started for Rouen, France. And in +the shadowy life of the F. C. T. C. lies the secret of that, my +last employment in my calling, which in a remote sense +interrupted the rhythmical development of Nina Almayer's story. + +The then secretary of the London Shipmasters' Society, with its +modest rooms in Fenchurch Street, was a man of indefatigable +activity and the greatest devotion to his task. He is +responsible for what was my last association with a ship. I call +it that be cause it can hardly be called a sea-going experience. +Dear Captain Froud--it is impossible not to pay him the tribute +of affectionate familiarity at this distance of years--had very +sound views as to the advancement of knowledge and status for the +whole body of the officers of the mercantile marine. He organized +for us courses of professional lectures, St. John ambulance +classes, corresponded industriously with public bodies and +members of Parliament on subjects touching the interests of the +service; and as to the oncoming of some inquiry or commission +relating to matters of the sea and to the work of seamen, it was +a perfect godsend to his need of exerting himself on our +corporate behalf. Together with this high sense of his official +duties he had in him a vein of personal kindness, a strong +disposition to do what good he could to the individual members of +that craft of which in his time he had been a very excellent +master. And what greater kindness can one do to a seaman than to +put him in the way of employment? Captain Froud did not see why +the Shipmasters' Society, besides its general guardianship of our +interests, should not be unofficially an employment agency of the +very highest class. + +"I am trying to persuade all our great ship-owning firms to come +to us for their men. There is nothing of a trade-union spirit +about our society, and I really don't see why they should not," +he said once to me. "I am always telling the captains, too, +that, all things being equal, they ought to give preference to +the members of the society. In my position I can generally find +for them what they want among our members or our associate +members." + +In my wanderings about London from west to east and back again (I +was very idle then) the two little rooms in Fenchurch Street were +a sort of resting-place where my spirit, hankering after the sea, +could feel itself nearer to the ships, the men, and the life of +its choice--nearer there than on any other spot of the solid +earth. This resting-place used to be, at about five o'clock in +the afternoon, full of men and tobacco smoke, but Captain Froud +had the smaller room to himself and there he granted private +interviews, whose principal motive was to render service. Thus, +one murky November afternoon he beckoned me in with a crooked +finger and that peculiar glance above his spectacles which is +perhaps my strongest physical recollection of the man. + +"I have had in here a shipmaster, this morning," he said, getting +back to his desk and motioning me to a chair, "who is in want of +an officer. It's for a steamship. You know, nothing pleases me +more than to be asked, but, unfortunately, I do not quite see my +way . . ." + +As the outer room was full of men I cast a wondering glance at +the closed door; but he shook his head. + +"Oh, yes, I should be only too glad to get that berth for one of +them. But the fact of the matter is, the captain of that ship +wants an officer who can speak French fluently, and that's not so +easy to find. I do not know anybody myself but you. It's a +second officer's berth and, of course, you would not care . . . +would you now? I know that it isn't what you are looking for." + +It was not. I had given myself up to the idleness of a haunted +man who looks for nothing but words wherein to capture his +visions. But I admit that outwardly I resembled sufficiently a +man who could make a second officer for a steamer chartered by a +French company. I showed no sign of being haunted by the fate of +Nina and by the murmurs of tropical forests; and even my intimate +intercourse with Almayer (a person of weak character) had not put +a visible mark upon my features. For many years he and the world +of his story had been the companions of my imagination without, I +hope, impairing my ability to deal with the realities of sea +life. I had had the man and his surroundings with me ever since +my return from the eastern waters--some four years before the day +of which I speak. + +It was in the front sitting-room of furnished apartments in a +Pimlico square that they first began to live again with a +vividness and poignancy quite foreign to our former real +intercourse. I had been treating myself to a long stay on shore, +and in the necessity of occupying my mornings Almayer (that old +acquaintance) came nobly to the rescue. + +Before long, as was only proper, his wife and daughter joined him +round my table, and then the rest of that Pantai band came full +of words and gestures. Unknown to my respectable landlady, it +was my practice directly after my breakfast to hold animated +receptions of Malays, Arabs, and half-castes. They did not +clamour aloud for my attention. They came with a silent and +irresistible appeal--and the appeal, I affirm here, was not to my +self-love or my vanity. It seems now to have had a moral +character, for why should the memory of these beings, seen in +their obscure, sun-bathed existence, demand to express itself in +the shape of a novel, except on the ground of that mysterious +fellowship which unites in a community of hopes and fears all the +dwellers on this earth? + +I did not receive my visitors with boisterous rapture as the +bearers of any gifts of profit or fame. There was no vision of a +printed book before me as I sat writing at that table, situated +in a decayed part of Belgravia. After all these years, each +leaving its evidence of slowly blackened pages, I can honestly +say that it is a sentiment akin to pity which prompted me to +render in words assembled with conscientious care the memory of +things far distant and of men who had lived. + +But, coming back to Captain Froud and his fixed idea of never +disappointing ship owners or ship-captains, it was not likely +that I should fail him in his ambition--to satisfy at a few +hours' notice the unusual demand for a French-speaking officer. +He explained to me that the ship was chartered by a French +company intending to establish a regular monthly line of sailings +from Rouen, for the transport of French emigrants to Canada. +But, frankly, this sort of thing did not interest me very much. +I said gravely that if it were really a matter of keeping up the +reputation of the Shipmasters' Society I would consider it. But +the consideration was just for form's sake. The next day I +interviewed the captain, and I believe we were impressed +favourably with each other. He explained that his chief mate was +an excellent man in every respect and that he could not think of +dismissing him so as to give me the higher position; but that if +I consented to come as second officer I would be given certain +special advantages--and so on. + +I told him that if I came at all the rank really did not matter. + +"I am sure," he insisted, "you will get on first rate with Mr. +Paramor." + +I promised faithfully to stay for two trips at least, and it was +in those circumstances that what was to be my last connection +with a ship began. And after all there was not even one single +trip. It may be that it was simply the fulfilment of a fate, of +that written word on my forehead which apparently for bade me, +through all my sea wanderings, ever to achieve the crossing of +the Western Ocean--using the words in that special sense in which +sailors speak of Western Ocean trade, of Western Ocean packets, +of Western Ocean hard cases. The new life attended closely upon +the old, and the nine chapters of "Almayer's Folly" went with me +to the Victoria Dock, whence in a few days we started for Rouen. +I won't go so far as saying that the engaging of a man fated +never to cross the Western Ocean was the absolute cause of the +Franco-Canadian Transport Company's failure to achieve even a +single passage. It might have been that of course; but the +obvious, gross obstacle was clearly the want of money. Four +hundred and sixty bunks for emigrants were put together in the +'tween decks by industrious carpenters while we lay in the +Victoria Dock, but never an emigrant turned up in Rouen--of +which, being a humane person, I confess I was glad. Some +gentlemen from Paris--I think there were three of them, and one +was said to be the chairman--turned up, indeed, and went from end +to end of the ship, knocking their silk hats cruelly against the +deck beams. I attended them personally, and I can vouch for it +that the interest they took in things was intelligent enough, +though, obviously, they had never seen anything of the sort +before. Their faces as they went ashore wore a cheerfully +inconclusive expression. Notwithstanding that this inspecting +ceremony was supposed to be a preliminary to immediate sailing, +it was then, as they filed down our gangway, that I received the +inward monition that no sailing within the meaning of our charter +party would ever take place. + +It must be said that in less than three weeks a move took place. +When we first arrived we had been taken up with much ceremony +well toward the centre of the town, and, all the street corners +being placarded with the tricolor posters announcing the birth of +our company, the petit bourgeois with his wife and family made a +Sunday holiday from the inspection of the ship. I was always in +evidence in my best uniform to give information as though I had +been a Cook's tourists' interpreter, while our quartermasters +reaped a harvest of small change from personally conducted +parties. But when the move was made--that move which carried us +some mile and a half down the stream to be tied up to an +altogether muddier and shabbier quay--then indeed the desolation +of solitude became our lot. It was a complete and soundless +stagnation; for as we had the ship ready for sea to the smallest +detail, as the frost was hard and the days short, we were +absolutely idle--idle to the point of blushing with shame when +the thought struck us that all the time our salaries went on. +Young Cole was aggrieved because, as he said, we could not enjoy +any sort of fun in the evening after loafing like this all day; +even the banjo lost its charm since there was nothing to prevent +his strumming on it all the time between the meals. The good +Paramor--he was really a most excellent fellow--became unhappy as +far as was possible to his cheery nature, till one dreary day I +suggested, out of sheer mischief, that he should employ the +dormant energies of the crew in hauling both cables up on deck +and turning them end for end. + +For a moment Mr. Paramor was radiant. "Excellent idea!" but +directly his face fell. "Why . . . Yes! But we can't make that +job last more than three days," he muttered, discontentedly. I +don't know how long he expected us to be stuck on the riverside +outskirts of Rouen, but I know that the cables got hauled up and +turned end for end according to my satanic suggestion, put down +again, and their very existence utterly forgotten, I believe, +before a French river pilot came on board to take our ship down, +empty as she came, into the Havre roads. You may think that this +state of forced idleness favoured some advance in the fortunes of +Almayer and his daughter. Yet it was not so. As if it were some +sort of evil spell, my banjoist cabin mate's interruption, as +related above, had arrested them short at the point of that +fateful sunset for many weeks together. It was always thus with +this book, begun in '89 and finished in '94--with that shortest +of all the novels which it was to be my lot to write. Between +its opening exclamation calling Almayer to his dinner in his +wife's voice and Abdullah's (his enemy) mental reference to the +God of Islam--"The Merciful, the Compassionate"--which closes the +book, there were to come several long sea passages, a visit (to +use the elevated phraseology suitable to the occasion) to the +scenes (some of them) of my childhood and the realization of +childhood's vain words, expressing a light-hearted and romantic +whim. + +It was in 1868, when nine years old or thereabouts, that while +looking at a map of Africa of the time and putting my finger on +the blank space then representing the unsolved mystery of that +continent, I said to myself, with absolute assurance and an +amazing audacity which are no longer in my character now: + +"When I grow up I shall go THERE." + +And of course I thought no more about it till after a quarter of +a century or so an opportunity offered to go there--as if the sin +of childish audacity were to be visited on my mature head. Yes. +I did go there: THERE being the region of Stanley Falls, which in +'68 was the blankest of blank spaces on the earth's figured +surface. And the MS. of "Almayer's Folly," carried about me as +if it were a talisman or a treasure, went THERE, too. That it +ever came out of THERE seems a special dispensation of +Providence, because a good many of my other properties, +infinitely more valuable and useful to me, remained behind +through unfortunate accidents of transportation. I call to mind, +for instance, a specially awkward turn of the Congo between +Kinchassa and Leopoldsville--more particularly when one had to +take it at night in a big canoe with only half the proper number +of paddlers. I failed in being the second white man on record +drowned at that interesting spot through the upsetting of a +canoe. The first was a young Belgian officer, but the accident +happened some months before my time, and he, too, I believe, was +going home; not perhaps quite so ill as myself--but still he was +going home. I got round the turn more or less alive, though I +was too sick to care whether I did or not, and, always with +"Almayer's Folly" among my diminishing baggage, I arrived at that +delectable capital, Boma, where, before the departure of the +steamer which was to take me home, I had the time to wish myself +dead over and over again with perfect sincerity. At that date +there were in existence only seven chapters of "Almayer's Folly," +but the chapter in my history which followed was that of a long, +long illness and very dismal convalescence. Geneva, or more +precisely the hydropathic establishment of Champel, is rendered +forever famous by the termination of the eighth chapter in the +history of Almayer's decline and fall. The events of the ninth +are inextricably mixed up with the details of the proper +management of a waterside warehouse owned by a certain city firm +whose name does not matter. But that work, undertaken to +accustom myself again to the activities of a healthy existence, +soon came to an end. The earth had nothing to hold me with for +very long. And then that memorable story, like a cask of choice +Madeira, got carried for three years to and fro upon the sea. +Whether this treatment improved its flavour or not, of course I +would not like to say. As far as appearance is concerned it +certainly did nothing of the kind. The whole MS. acquired a +faded look and an ancient, yellowish complexion. It became at +last unreasonable to suppose that anything in the world would +ever happen to Almayer and Nina. And yet something most unlikely +to happen on the high seas was to wake them up from their state +of suspended animation. + +What is it that Novalis says: "It is certain my conviction gains +infinitely the moment an other soul will believe in it." And +what is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men's existence +strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer +than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected +episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history. +Providence which saved my MS. from the Congo rapids brought it to +the knowledge of a helpful soul far out on the open sea. It +would be on my part the greatest ingratitude ever to forget the +sallow, sunken face and the deep-set, dark eyes of the young +Cambridge man (he was a "passenger for his health" on board the +good ship Torrens outward bound to Australia) who was the first +reader of "Almayer's Folly"--the very first reader I ever had. + +"Would it bore you very much in reading a MS. in a handwriting +like mine?" I asked him one evening, on a sudden impulse at the +end of a longish conversation whose subject was Gibbon's History. + +Jacques (that was his name) was sitting in my cabin one stormy +dog-watch below, after bring me a book to read from his own +travelling store. + +"Not at all," he answered, with his courteous intonation and a +faint smile. As I pulled a drawer open his suddenly aroused +curiosity gave him a watchful expression. I wonder what he +expected to see. A poem, maybe. All that's beyond guessing now. + +He was not a cold, but a calm man, still more subdued by +disease--a man of few words and of an unassuming modesty in +general intercourse, but with something uncommon in the whole of +his person which set him apart from the undistinguished lot of +our sixty passengers. His eyes had a thoughtful, introspective +look. In his attractive reserved manner and in a veiled +sympathetic voice he asked: + +"What is this?" "It is a sort of tale," I answered, with an +effort. "It is not even finished yet. Nevertheless, I would +like to know what you think of it." He put the MS. in the +breast-pocket of his jacket; I remember perfectly his thin, brown +fingers folding it lengthwise. "I will read it to-morrow," he +remarked, seizing the door handle; and then watching the roll of +the ship for a propitious moment, he opened the door and was +gone. In the moment of his exit I heard the sustained booming of +the wind, the swish of the water on the decks of the Torrens, and +the subdued, as if distant, roar of the rising sea. I noted the +growing disquiet in the great restlessness of the ocean, and +responded professionally to it with the thought that at eight +o'clock, in another half hour or so at the farthest, the +topgallant sails would have to come off the ship. + +Next day, but this time in the first dog watch, Jacques entered +my cabin. He had a thick woollen muffler round his throat, and +the MS. was in his hand. He tendered it to me with a steady +look, but without a word. I took it in silence. He sat down on +the couch and still said nothing. I opened and shut a drawer +under my desk, on which a filled-up log-slate lay wide open in +its wooden frame waiting to be copied neatly into the sort of +book I was accustomed to write with care, the ship's log-book. I +turned my back squarely on the desk. And even then Jacques never +offered a word. "Well, what do you say?" I asked at last. "Is +it worth finishing?" This question expressed exactly the whole +of my thoughts. + +"Distinctly," he answered, in his sedate, veiled voice, and then +coughed a little. + +"Were you interested?" I inquired further, almost in a whisper. + +"Very much!" + +In a pause I went on meeting instinctively the heavy rolling of +the ship, and Jacques put his feet upon the couch. The curtain +of my bed-place swung to and fro as if it were a punkah, the +bulkhead lamp circled in its gimbals, and now and then the cabin +door rattled slightly in the gusts of wind. It was in latitude +40 south, and nearly in the longitude of Greenwich, as far as I +can remember, that these quiet rites of Almayer's and Nina's +resurrection were taking place. In the prolonged silence it +occurred to me that there was a good deal of retrospective +writing in the story as far as it went. Was it intelligible in +its action, I asked myself, as if already the story-teller were +being born into the body of a seaman. But I heard on deck the +whistle of the officer of the watch and remained on the alert to +catch the order that was to follow this call to attention. It +reached me as a faint, fierce shout to "Square the yards." "Aha!" +I thought to myself, "a westerly blow coming on." Then I turned +to my very first reader, who, alas! was not to live long enough +to know the end of the tale. + +"Now let me ask you one more thing: is the story quite clear to +you as it stands?" + +He raised his dark, gentle eyes to my face and seemed surprised. + +"Yes! Perfectly." + +This was all I was to hear from his lips concerning the merits of +"Almayer's Folly." We never spoke together of the book again. A +long period of bad weather set in and I had no thoughts left but +for my duties, while poor Jacques caught a fatal cold and had to +keep close in his cabin. When we arrived in Adelaide the first +reader of my prose went at once up-country, and died rather +suddenly in the end, either in Australia or it may be on the +passage while going home through the Suez Canal. I am not sure +which it was now, and I do not think I ever heard precisely; +though I made inquiries about him from some of our return +passengers who, wandering about to "see the country" during the +ship's stay in port, had come upon him here and there. At last +we sailed, homeward bound, and still not one line was added to +the careless scrawl of the many pages which poor Jacques had had +the patience to read with the very shadows of Eternity gathering +already in the hollows of his kind, steadfast eyes. + +The purpose instilled into me by his simple and final +"Distinctly" remained dormant, yet alive to await its +opportunity. I dare say I am compelled--unconsciously +compelled--now to write volume after volume, as in past years I +was compelled to go to sea voyage after voyage. Leaves must +follow upon one an other as leagues used to follow in the days +gone by, on and on to the appointed end, which, being Truth +itself, is One--one for all men and for all occupations. + +I do not know which of the two impulses has appeared more +mysterious and more wonderful to me. Still, in writing, as in +going to sea, I had to wait my opportunity. Let me confess here +that I was never one of those wonderful fellows that would go +afloat in a wash-tub for the sake of the fun, and if I may pride +myself upon my consistency, it was ever just the same with my +writing. Some men, I have heard, write in railway carriages, and +could do it, perhaps, sitting crossed-legged on a clothes-line; +but I must confess that my sybaritic disposition will not consent +to write without something at least resembling a chair. Line by +line, rather than page by page, was the growth of "Almayer's +Folly." + +And so it happened that I very nearly lost the MS., advanced now +to the first words of the ninth chapter, in the Friedrichstrasse +Poland, or more precisely to Ukraine. On an early, sleepy +morning changing trains in a hurry I left my Gladstone bag in a +refreshment-room. A worthy and intelligent Koffertrager rescued +it. Yet in my anxiety I was not thinking of the MS., but of all +the other things that were packed in the bag. + +In Warsaw, where I spent two days, those wandering pages were +never exposed to the light, except once to candle-light, while +the bag lay open on the chair. I was dressing hurriedly to dine +at a sporting club. A friend of my childhood (he had been in the +Diplomatic Service, but had turned to growing wheat on paternal +acres, and we had not seen each other for over twenty years) was +sitting on the hotel sofa waiting to carry me off there. + +"You might tell me something of your life while you are +dressing," he suggested, kindly. + +I do not think I told him much of my life story either then or +later. The talk of the select little party with which he made me +dine was extremely animated and embraced most subjects under +heaven, from big-game shooting in Africa to the last poem +published in a very modernist review, edited by the very young +and patronized by the highest society. But it never touched upon +"Almayer's Folly," and next morning, in uninterrupted obscurity, +this inseparable companion went on rolling with me in the +southeast direction toward the government of Kiev. + +At that time there was an eight hours' drive, if not more, from +the railway station to the country-house which was my +destination. + +"Dear boy" (these words were always written in English), so ran +the last letter from that house received in London--"Get yourself +driven to the only inn in the place, dine as well as you can, and +some time in the evening my own confidential servant, factotum +and majordomo, a Mr. V. S. (I warn you he is of noble +extraction), will present himself before you, reporting the +arrival of the small sledge which will take you here on the next +day. I send with him my heaviest fur, which I suppose with such +overcoats as you may have with you will keep you from freezing on +the road." + +Sure enough, as I was dining, served by a Hebrew waiter, in an +enormous barn-like bedroom with a freshly painted floor, the door +opened and, in a travelling costume of long boots, big sheepskin +cap, and a short coat girt with a leather belt, the Mr. V. S. (of +noble extraction), a man of about thirty-five, appeared with an +air of perplexity on his open and mustached countenance. I got +up from the table and greeted him in Polish, with, I hope, the +right shade of consideration demanded by his noble blood and his +confidential position. His face cleared up in a wonderful way. +It appeared that, notwithstanding my uncle's earnest assurances, +the good fellow had remained in doubt of our understanding each +other. He imagined I would talk to him in some foreign language. + +I was told that his last words on getting into the sledge to come +to meet me shaped an anxious exclamation: + +"Well! Well! Here I am going, but God only knows how I am to +make myself understood to our master's nephew." + +We understood each other very well from the first. He took +charge of me as if I were not quite of age. I had a delightful +boyish feeling of coming home from school when he muffled me up +next morning in an enormous bearskin travelling-coat and took his +seat protectively by my side. The sledge was a very small one, +and it looked utterly insignificant, almost like a toy behind the +four big bays harnessed two and two. We three, counting the +coachman, filled it completely. He was a young fellow with clear +blue eyes; the high collar of his livery fur coat framed his +cheery countenance and stood all round level with the top of his +head. + +"Now, Joseph," my companion addressed him, "do you think we shall +manage to get home before six?" His answer was that we would +surely, with God's help, and providing there were no heavy drifts +in the long stretch between certain villages whose names came +with an extremely familiar sound to my ears. He turned out an +excellent coachman, with an instinct for keeping the road among +the snow-covered fields and a natural gift of getting the best +out of his horses. + +"He is the son of that Joseph that I suppose the Captain +remembers. He who used to drive the Captain's late grandmother +of holy memory," remarked V. S., busy tucking fur rugs about my +feet. + +I remembered perfectly the trusty Joseph who used to drive my +grandmother. Why! he it was who let me hold the reins for the +first time in my life and allowed me to play with the great +four-in-hand whip outside the doors of the coach-house. + +"What became of him?" I asked. "He is no longer serving, I +suppose." + +"He served our master," was the reply. "But he died of cholera +ten years ago now--that great epidemic that we had. And his wife +died at the same time--the whole houseful of them, and this is +the only boy that was left." + +The MS. of "Almayer's Folly" was reposing in the bag under our +feet. + +I saw again the sun setting on the plains as I saw it in the +travels of my childhood. It set, clear and red, dipping into the +snow in full view as if it were setting on the sea. It was +twenty-three years since I had seen the sun set over that land; +and we drove on in the darkness which fell swiftly upon the livid +expanse of snows till, out of the waste of a white earth joining +a bestarred sky, surged up black shapes, the clumps of trees +about a village of the Ukrainian plain. A cottage or two glided +by, a low interminable wall, and then, glimmering and winking +through a screen of fir-trees, the lights of the master's house. + +That very evening the wandering MS. of "Almayer's Folly" was +unpacked and unostentatiously laid on the writing-table in my +room, the guest-room which had been, I was informed in an +affectionately careless tone, awaiting me for some fifteen years +or so. It attracted no attention from the affectionate presence +hovering round the son of the favourite sister. + +"You won't have many hours to yourself while you are staying with +me, brother," he said--this form of address borrowed from the +speech of our peasants being the usual expression of the highest +good humour in a moment of affectionate elation. "I shall be +always coming in for a chat." + +As a matter of fact, we had the whole house to chat in, and were +everlastingly intruding upon each other. I invaded the +retirement of his study where the principal feature was a +colossal silver inkstand presented to him on his fiftieth year by +a subscription of all his wards then living. He had been +guardian of many orphans of land-owning families from the three +southern provinces--ever since the year 1860. Some of them had +been my school fellows and playmates, but not one of them, girls +or boys, that I know of has ever written a novel. One or two +were older than myself--considerably older, too. One of them, a +visitor I remember in my early years, was the man who first put +me on horseback, and his four-horse bachelor turnout, his perfect +horsemanship and general skill in manly exercises, was one of my +earliest admirations. I seem to remember my mother looking on +from a colonnade in front of the dining-room windows as I was +lifted upon the pony, held, for all I know, by the very Joseph-- +the groom attached specially to my grandmother's service--who +died of cholera. It was certainly a young man in a dark-blue, +tailless coat and huge Cossack trousers, that being the livery of +the men about the stables. It must have been in 1864, but +reckoning by another mode of calculating time, it was certainly +in the year in which my mother obtained permission to travel +south and visit her family, from the exile into which she had +followed my father. For that, too, she had had to ask +permission, and I know that one of the conditions of that favour +was that she should be treated exactly as a condemned exile +herself. Yet a couple of years later, in memory of her eldest +brother, who had served in the Guards and dying early left hosts +of friends and a loved memory in the great world of St. +Petersburg, some influential personages procured for her this +permission--it was officially called the "Highest Grace"--of a +four months' leave from exile. + +This is also the year in which I first begin to remember my +mother with more distinctness than a mere loving, wide-browed, +silent, protecting presence, whose eyes had a sort of commanding +sweetness; and I also remember the great gathering of all the +relations from near and far, and the gray heads of the family +friends paying her the homage of respect and love in the house of +her favourite brother, who, a few years later, was to take the +place for me of both my parents. + +I did not understand the tragic significance of it all at the +time, though, indeed, I remember that doctors also came. There +were no signs of invalidism about her--but I think that already +they had pronounced her doom unless perhaps the change to a +southern climate could re-establish her declining strength. For +me it seems the very happiest period of my existence. There was +my cousin, a delightful, quick-tempered little girl, some months +younger than myself, whose life, lovingly watched over as if she +were a royal princess, came to an end with her fifteenth year. +There were other children, too, many of whom are dead now, and +not a few whose very names I have forgotten. Over all this hung +the oppressive shadow of the great Russian empire--the shadow +lowering with the darkness of a new-born national hatred fostered +by the Moscow school of journalists against the Poles after the +ill-omened rising of 1863. + +This is a far cry back from the MS. of "Almayer's Folly," but the +public record of these formative impressions is not the whim of +an uneasy egotism. These, too, are things human, already distant +in their appeal. It is meet that something more should be left +for the novelist's children than the colours and figures of his +own hard-won creation. That which in their grown-up years may +appear to the world about them as the most enigmatic side of +their natures and perhaps must remain forever obscure even to +themselves, will be their unconscious response to the still voice +of that inexorable past from which his work of fiction and their +personalities are remotely derived. + +Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and +undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme +master of art as of life. An imaginative and exact rendering of +authentic memories may serve worthily that spirit of piety toward +all things human which sanctions the conceptions of a writer of +tales, and the emotions of the man reviewing his own experience. + + +II + +As I have said, I was unpacking my luggage after a journey from +London into Ukraine. The MS. of "Almayer's Folly"--my companion +already for some three years or more, and then in the ninth +chapter of its age--was deposited unostentatiously on the +writing-table placed between two windows. It didn't occur to me +to put it away in the drawer the table was fitted with, but my +eye was attracted by the good form of the same drawer's brass +handles. Two candelabra, with four candles each, lighted up +festally the room which had waited so many years for the +wandering nephew. The blinds were down. + +Within five hundred yards of the chair on which I sat stood the +first peasant hut of the village--part of my maternal +grandfather's estate, the only part remaining in the possession +of a member of the family; and beyond the village in the +limitless blackness of a winter's night there lay the great +unfenced fields--not a flat and severe plain, but a kindly bread- +giving land of low rounded ridges, all white now, with the black +patches of timber nestling in the hollows. The road by which I +had come ran through the village with a turn just outside the +gates closing the short drive. Somebody was abroad on the deep +snow track; a quick tinkle of bells stole gradually into the +stillness of the room like a tuneful whisper. + +My unpacking had been watched over by the servant who had come to +help me, and, for the most part, had been standing attentive but +unnecessary at the door of the room. I did not want him in the +least, but I did not like to tell him to go away. He was a young +fellow, certainly more than ten years younger than myself; I had +not been--I won't say in that place, but within sixty miles of +it, ever since the year '67; yet his guileless physiognomy of the +open peasant type seemed strangely familiar. It was quite +possible that he might have been a descendant, a son, or even a +grandson, of the servants whose friendly faces had been familiar +to me in my early childhood. As a matter of fact he had no such +claim on my consideration. He was the product of some village +near by and was there on his promotion, having learned the +service in one or two houses as pantry boy. I know this because +I asked the worthy V---- next day. I might well have spared the +question. I discovered before long that all the faces about the +house and all the faces in the village: the grave faces with long +mustaches of the heads of families, the downy faces of the young +men, the faces of the little fair-haired children, the handsome, +tanned, wide-browed faces of the mothers seen at the doors of the +huts, were as familiar to me as though I had known them all from +childhood and my childhood were a matter of the day before +yesterday. + +The tinkle of the traveller's bells, after growing louder, had +faded away quickly, and the tumult of barking dogs in the village +had calmed down at last. My uncle, lounging in the corner of a +small couch, smoked his long Turkish chibouk in silence. + +"This is an extremely nice writing-table you have got for my +room," I remarked. + +"It is really your property," he said, keeping his eyes on me, +with an interested and wistful expression, as he had done ever +since I had entered the house. "Forty years ago your mother used +to write at this very table. In our house in Oratow, it stood in +the little sitting-room which, by a tacit arrangement, was given +up to the girls--I mean to your mother and her sister who died so +young. It was a present to them jointly from your uncle Nicholas +B. when your mother was seventeen and your aunt two years +younger. She was a very dear, delightful girl, that aunt of +yours, of whom I suppose you know nothing more than the name. +She did not shine so much by personal beauty and a cultivated +mind in which your mother was far superior. It was her good +sense, the admirable sweetness of her nature, her exceptional +facility and ease in daily relations, that endeared her to every +body. Her death was a terrible grief and a serious moral loss +for us all. Had she lived she would have brought the greatest +blessings to the house it would have been her lot to enter, as +wife, mother, and mistress of a household. She would have +created round herself an atmosphere of peace and content which +only those who can love unselfishly are able to evoke. Your +mother--of far greater beauty, exceptionally distinguished in +person, manner, and intellect--had a less easy disposition. +Being more brilliantly gifted, she also expected more from life. +At that trying time especially, we were greatly concerned about +her state. Suffering in her health from the shock of her +father's death (she was alone in the house with him when he died +suddenly), she was torn by the inward struggle between her love +for the man whom she was to marry in the end and her knowledge of +her dead father's declared objection to that match. Unable to +bring herself to disregard that cherished memory and that +judgment she had always respected and trusted, and, on the other +hand, feeling the impossibility to resist a sentiment so deep and +so true, she could not have been expected to preserve her mental +and moral balance. At war with herself, she could not give to +others that feeling of peace which was not her own. It was only +later, when united at last with the man of her choice, that she +developed those uncommon gifts of mind and heart which compelled +the respect and admiration even of our foes. Meeting with calm +fortitude the cruel trials of a life reflecting all the national +and social misfortunes of the community, she realized the highest +conceptions of duty as a wife, a mother, and a patriot, sharing +the exile of her husband and representing nobly the ideal of +Polish womanhood. Our uncle Nicholas was not a man very +accessible to feelings of affection. Apart from his worship for +Napoleon the Great, he loved really, I believe, only three people +in the world: his mother--your great-grandmother, whom you have +seen but cannot possibly remember; his brother, our father, in +whose house he lived for so many years; and of all of us, his +nephews and nieces grown up around him, your mother alone. The +modest, lovable qualities of the youngest sister he did not seem +able to see. It was I who felt most profoundly this unexpected +stroke of death falling upon the family less than a year after I +had become its head. It was terribly unexpected. Driving home +one wintry afternoon to keep me company in our empty house, where +I had to remain permanently administering the estate and at +tending to the complicated affairs--(the girls took it in turn +week and week about)--driving, as I said, from the house of the +Countess Tekla Potocka, where our invalid mother was staying then +to be near a doctor, they lost the road and got stuck in a snow +drift. She was alone with the coachman and old Valery, the +personal servant of our late father. Impatient of delay while +they were trying to dig themselves out, she jumped out of the +sledge and went to look for the road herself. All this happened +in '51, not ten miles from the house in which we are sitting now. + +The road was soon found, but snow had begun to fall thickly +again, and they were four more hours getting home. Both the men +took off their sheepskin lined greatcoats and used all their own +rugs to wrap her up against the cold, notwithstanding her +protests, positive orders, and even struggles, as Valery +afterward related to me. 'How could I,' he remonstrated with +her, 'go to meet the blessed soul of my late master if I let any +harm come to you while there's a spark of life left in my body?' +When they reached home at last the poor old man was stiff and +speechless from exposure, and the coachman was in not much better +plight, though he had the strength to drive round to the stables +himself. To my reproaches for venturing out at all in such +weather, she answered, characteristically, that she could not +bear the thought of abandoning me to my cheerless solitude. It +is incomprehensible how it was that she was allowed to start. I +suppose it had to be! She made light of the cough which came on +next day, but shortly afterward inflammation of the lungs set in, +and in three weeks she was no more! She was the first to be +taken away of the young generation under my care. Behold the +vanity of all hopes and fears! I was the most frail at birth of +all the children. For years I remained so delicate that my +parents had but little hope of bringing me up; and yet I have +survived five brothers and two sisters, and many of my +contemporaries; I have outlived my wife and daughter, too--and +from all those who have had some knowledge at least of these old +times you alone are left. It has been my lot to lay in an early +grave many honest hearts, many brilliant promises, many hopes +full of life." + +He got up briskly, sighed, and left me saying, "We will dine in +half an hour." + +Without moving, I listened to his quick steps resounding on the +waxed floor of the next room, traversing the anteroom lined with +bookshelves, where he paused to put his chibouk in the pipe-stand +before passing into the drawing-room (these were all en suite), +where he became inaudible on the thick carpet. But I heard the +door of his study-bedroom close. He was then sixty-two years old +and had been for a quarter of a century the wisest, the firmest, +the most indulgent of guardians, extending over me a paternal +care and affection, a moral support which I seemed to feel always +near me in the most distant parts of the earth. + +As to Mr. Nicholas B., sub-lieutenant of 1808, lieutenant of 1813 +in the French army, and for a short time Officier d'Ordonnance of +Marshal Marmont; afterward captain in the 2d Regiment of Mounted +Rifles in the Polish army--such as it existed up to 1830 in the +reduced kingdom established by the Congress of Vienna--I must say +that from all that more distant past, known to me traditionally +and a little de visu, and called out by the words of the man just +gone away, he remains the most incomplete figure. It is obvious +that I must have seen him in '64, for it is certain that he would +not have missed the opportunity of seeing my mother for what he +must have known would be the last time. From my early boyhood to +this day, if I try to call up his image, a sort of mist rises +before my eyes, mist in which I perceive vaguely only a neatly +brushed head of white hair (which is exceptional in the case of +the B. family, where it is the rule for men to go bald in a +becoming manner before thirty) and a thin, curved, dignified +nose, a feature in strict accordance with the physical tradition +of the B. family. But it is not by these fragmentary remains of +perishable mortality that he lives in my memory. I knew, at a +very early age, that my granduncle Nicholas B. was a Knight of +the Legion of Honour and that he had also the Polish Cross for +valour Virtuti Militari. The knowledge of these glorious facts +inspired in me an admiring veneration; yet it is not that +sentiment, strong as it was, which resumes for me the force and +the significance of his personality. It is over borne by another +and complex impression of awe, compassion, and horror. Mr. +Nicholas B. remains for me the unfortunate and miserable (but +heroic) being who once upon a time had eaten a dog. + +It is a good forty years since I heard the tale, and the effect +has not worn off yet. I believe this is the very first, say, +realistic, story I heard in my life; but all the same I don't +know why I should have been so frightfully impressed. Of course +I know what our village dogs look like--but still. . . . No! At +this very day, recalling the horror and compassion of my +childhood, I ask myself whether I am right in disclosing to a +cold and fastidious world that awful episode in the family +history. I ask myself--is it right?--especially as the B. family +had always been honourably known in a wide countryside for the +delicacy of their tastes in the matter of eating and drinking. +But upon the whole, and considering that this gastronomical +degradation overtaking a gallant young officer lies really at the +door of the Great Napoleon, I think that to cover it up by +silence would be an exaggeration of literary restraint. Let the +truth stand here. The responsibility rests with the Man of St. +Helena in view of his deplorable levity in the conduct of the +Russian campaign. It was during the memorable retreat from +Moscow that Mr. Nicholas B., in company of two brother +officers--as to whose morality and natural refinement I know +nothing--bagged a dog on the outskirts of a village and +subsequently devoured him. As far as I can remember the weapon +used was a cavalry sabre, and the issue of the sporting episode +was rather more of a matter of life and death than if it had been +an encounter with a tiger. A picket of Cossacks was sleeping in +that village lost in the depths of the great Lithuanian forest. +The three sportsmen had observed them from a hiding-place making +themselves very much at home among the huts just before the early +winter darkness set in at four o'clock. They had observed them +with disgust and, perhaps, with despair. Late in the night the +rash counsels of hunger overcame the dictates of prudence. +Crawling through the snow they crept up to the fence of dry +branches which generally encloses a village in that part of +Lithuania. What they expected to get and in what manner, and +whether this expectation was worth the risk, goodness only knows. + +However, these Cossack parties, in most cases wandering without +an officer, were known to guard themselves badly and often not at +all. In addition, the village lying at a great distance from the +line of French retreat, they could not suspect the presence of +stragglers from the Grand Army. The three officers had strayed +away in a blizzard from the main column and had been lost for +days in the woods, which explains sufficiently the terrible +straits to which they were reduced. Their plan was to try and +attract the attention of the peasants in that one of the huts +which was nearest to the enclosure; but as they were preparing to +venture into the very jaws of the lion, so to speak, a dog (it is +mighty strange that there was but one), a creature quite as +formidable under the circumstances as a lion, began to bark on +the other side of the fence. . . . + +At this stage of the narrative, which I heard many times (by +request) from the lips of Captain Nicholas B.'s sister-in-law, my +grandmother, I used to tremble with excitement. + +The dog barked. And if he had done no more than bark, three +officers of the Great Napoleon's army would have perished +honourably on the points of Cossacks' lances, or perchance +escaping the chase would have died decently of starvation. But +before they had time to think of running away that fatal and +revolting dog, being carried away by the excess of the zeal, +dashed out through a gap in the fence. He dashed out and died. +His head, I understand, was severed at one blow from his body. I +understand also that later on, within the gloomy solitudes of the +snow-laden woods, when, in a sheltering hollow, a fire had been +lit by the party, the condition of the quarry was discovered to +be distinctly unsatisfactory. It was not thin--on the contrary, +it seemed unhealthily obese; its skin showed bare patches of an +unpleasant character. However, they had not killed that dog for +the sake of the pelt. He was large. . . . He was eaten. . . . +The rest is silence. . . . + +A silence in which a small boy shudders and says firmly: + +"I could not have eaten that dog." + +And his grandmother remarks with a smile: + +"Perhaps you don't know what it is to be hungry." + +I have learned something of it since. Not that I have been +reduced to eat dog. I have fed on the emblematical animal, +which, in the language of the volatile Gauls, is called la vache +enragee; I have lived on ancient salt junk, I know the taste of +shark, of trepang, of snake, of nondescript dishes containing +things without a name--but of the Lithuanian village dog--never! +I wish it to be distinctly understood that it is not I, but my +granduncle Nicholas, of the Polish landed gentry, Chevalier de la +Legion d'Honneur, etc., who in his young days, had eaten the +Lithuanian dog. + +I wish he had not. The childish horror of the deed clings +absurdly to the grizzled man. I am perfectly helpless against +it. Still, if he really had to, let us charitably remember that +he had eaten him on active service, while bearing up bravely +against the greatest military disaster of modern history, and, in +a manner, for the sake of his country. He had eaten him to +appease his hunger, no doubt, but also for the sake of an +unappeasable and patriotic desire, in the glow of a great faith +that lives still, and in the pursuit of a great illusion kindled +like a false beacon by a great man to lead astray the effort of a +brave nation. + +Pro patria! + +Looked at in that light, it appears a sweet and decorous meal. + +And looked at in the same light, my own diet of la vache enragee +appears a fatuous and extravagant form of self-indulgence; for +why should I, the son of a land which such men as these have +turned up with their plowshares and bedewed with their blood, +undertake the pursuit of fantastic meals of salt junk and +hardtack upon the wide seas? On the kindest view it seems an +unanswerable question. Alas! I have the conviction that there +are men of unstained rectitude who are ready to murmur scornfully +the word desertion. Thus the taste of innocent adventure may be +made bitter to the palate. The part of the inexplicable should +be al lowed for in appraising the conduct of men in a world where +no explanation is final. No charge of faithlessness ought to be +lightly uttered. The appearances of this perishable life are +deceptive, like everything that falls under the judgment of our +imperfect senses. The inner voice may remain true enough in its +secret counsel. The fidelity to a special tradition may last +through the events of an unrelated existence, following +faithfully, too, the traced way of an inexplicable impulse. + +It would take too long to explain the intimate alliance of +contradictions in human nature which makes love itself wear at +times the desperate shape of betrayal. And perhaps there is no +possible explanation. Indulgence--as somebody said--is the most +intelligent of all the virtues. I venture to think that it is +one of the least common, if not the most uncommon of all. I +would not imply by this that men are foolish--or even most men. +Far from it. The barber and the priest, backed by the whole +opinion of the village, condemned justly the conduct of the +ingenious hidalgo, who, sallying forth from his native place, +broke the head of the muleteer, put to death a flock of +inoffensive sheep, and went through very doleful experiences in a +certain stable. God forbid that an unworthy churl should escape +merited censure by hanging on to the stirrup-leather of the +sublime caballero. His was a very noble, a very unselfish +fantasy, fit for nothing except to raise the envy of baser +mortals. But there is more than one aspect to the charm of that +exalted and dangerous figure. He, too, had his frailties. After +reading so many romances he desired naively to escape with his +very body from the intolerable reality of things. He wished to +meet, eye to eye, the valorous giant Brandabarbaran, Lord of +Arabia, whose armour is made of the skin of a dragon, and whose +shield, strapped to his arm, is the gate of a fortified city. +Oh, amiable and natural weakness! Oh, blessed simplicity of a +gentle heart without guile! Who would not succumb to such a +consoling temptation? Nevertheless, it was a form of +self-indulgence, and the ingenious hidalgo of La Mancha was not a +good citizen. The priest and the barber were not unreasonable in +their strictures. Without going so far as the old King +Louis-Philippe, who used to say in his exile, "The people are +never in fault"--one may admit that there must be some +righteousness in the assent of a whole village. Mad! Mad! He +who kept in pious meditation the ritual vigil-of-arms by the well +of an inn and knelt reverently to be knighted at daybreak by the +fat, sly rogue of a landlord has come very near perfection. He +rides forth, his head encircled by a halo--the patron saint of +all lives spoiled or saved by the irresistible grace of +imagination. But he was not a good citizen. + +Perhaps that and nothing else was meant by the well-remembered +exclamation of my tutor. + +It was in the jolly year 1873, the very last year in which I have +had a jolly holiday. There have been idle years afterward, jolly +enough in a way and not altogether without their lesson, but this +year of which I speak was the year of my last school-boy holiday. +There are other reasons why I should remember that year, but they +are too long to state formally in this place. Moreover, they +have nothing to do with that holiday. What has to do with the +holiday is that before the day on which the remark was made we +had seen Vienna, the Upper Danube, Munich, the Falls of the +Rhine, the Lake of Constance,--in fact, it was a memorable +holiday of travel. Of late we had been tramping slowly up the +Valley of the Reuss. It was a delightful time. It was much more +like a stroll than a tramp. Landing from a Lake of Lucerne +steamer in Fluelen, we found ourselves at the end of the second +day, with the dusk overtaking our leisurely footsteps, a little +way beyond Hospenthal. This is not the day on which the remark +was made: in the shadows of the deep valley and with the +habitations of men left some way behind, our thoughts ran not +upon the ethics of conduct, but upon the simpler human problem of +shelter and food. There did not seem anything of the kind in +sight, and we were thinking of turning back when suddenly, at a +bend of the road, we came upon a building, ghostly in the +twilight. + +At that time the work on the St. Gothard Tunnel was going on, and +that magnificent enterprise of burrowing was directly responsible +for the unexpected building, standing all alone upon the very +roots of the mountains. It was long, though not big at all; it +was low; it was built of boards, without ornamentation, in +barrack-hut style, with the white window-frames quite flush with +the yellow face of its plain front. And yet it was a hotel; it +had even a name, which I have forgotten. But there was no gold +laced doorkeeper at its humble door. A plain but vigorous +servant-girl answered our inquiries, then a man and woman who +owned the place appeared. It was clear that no travellers were +expected, or perhaps even desired, in this strange hostelry, +which in its severe style resembled the house which sur mounts +the unseaworthy-looking hulls of the toy Noah's Arks, the +universal possession of European childhood. However, its roof +was not hinged and it was not full to the brim of slab-sided and +painted animals of wood. Even the live tourist animal was +nowhere in evidence. We had something to eat in a long, narrow +room at one end of a long, narrow table, which, to my tired +perception and to my sleepy eyes, seemed as if it would tilt up +like a see saw plank, since there was no one at the other end to +balance it against our two dusty and travel-stained figures. +Then we hastened up stairs to bed in a room smelling of pine +planks, and I was fast asleep before my head touched the pillow. + +In the morning my tutor (he was a student of the Cracow +University) woke me up early, and as we were dressing remarked: +"There seems to be a lot of people staying in this hotel. I have +heard a noise of talking up till eleven o'clock." This statement +surprised me; I had heard no noise whatever, having slept like a +top. + +We went down-stairs into the long and narrow dining-room with its +long and narrow table. There were two rows of plates on it. At +one of the many curtained windows stood a tall, bony man with a +bald head set off by a bunch of black hair above each ear, and +with a long, black beard. He glanced up from the paper he was +reading and seemed genuinely astonished at our intrusion. By and +by more men came in. Not one of them looked like a tourist. Not +a single woman appeared. These men seemed to know each other +with some intimacy, but I cannot say they were a very talkative +lot. The bald-headed man sat down gravely at the head of the +table. It all had the air of a family party. By and by, from +one of the vigorous servant-girls in national costume, we +discovered that the place was really a boarding house for some +English engineers engaged at the works of the St. Gothard Tunnel; +and I could listen my fill to the sounds of the English language, +as far as it is used at a breakfast-table by men who do not +believe in wasting many words on the mere amenities of life. + +This was my first contact with British mankind apart from the +tourist kind seen in the hotels of Zurich and Lucerne--the kind +which has no real existence in a workaday world. I know now that +the bald-headed man spoke with a strong Scotch accent. I have +met many of his kind ashore and afloat. The second engineer of +the steamer Mavis, for instance, ought to have been his twin +brother. I cannot help thinking that he really was, though for +some reason of his own he assured me that he never had a twin +brother. Anyway, the deliberate, bald-headed Scot with the +coal-black beard appeared to my boyish eyes a very romantic and +mysterious person. + +We slipped out unnoticed. Our mapped-out route led over the +Furca Pass toward the Rhone Glacier, with the further intention +of following down the trend of the Hasli Valley. The sun was +already declining when we found ourselves on the top of the pass, +and the remark alluded to was presently uttered. + +We sat down by the side of the road to continue the argument +begun half a mile or so before. I am certain it was an argument, +because I remember perfectly how my tutor argued and how without +the power of reply I listened, with my eyes fixed obstinately on +the ground. A stir on the road made me look up--and then I saw +my unforgettable Englishman. There are acquaintances of later +years, familiars, shipmates, whom I remember less clearly. He +marched rapidly toward the east (attended by a hang-dog Swiss +guide), with the mien of an ardent and fearless traveller. He +was clad in a knickerbocker suit, but as at the same time he wore +short socks under his laced boots, for reasons which, whether +hygienic or conscientious, were surely imaginative, his calves, +exposed to the public gaze and to the tonic air of high +altitudes, dazzled the beholder by the splendour of their +marble-like condition and their rich tone of young ivory. He was +the leader of a small caravan. The light of a headlong, exalted +satisfaction with the world of men and the scenery of mountains +illumined his clean-cut, very red face, his short, silver-white +whiskers, his innocently eager and triumphant eyes. In passing +he cast a glance of kindly curiosity and a friendly gleam of big, +sound, shiny teeth toward the man and the boy sitting like dusty +tramps by the roadside, with a modest knapsack lying at their +feet. His white calves twinkled sturdily, the uncouth Swiss +guide with a surly mouth stalked like an unwilling bear at his +elbow; a small train of three mules followed in single file the +lead of this inspiring enthusiast. Two ladies rode past, one +behind the other, but from the way they sat I saw only their +calm, uniform backs, and the long ends of blue veils hanging +behind far down over their identical hat-brims. His two +daughters, surely. An industrious luggage-mule, with unstarched +ears and guarded by a slouching, sallow driver, brought up the +rear. My tutor, after pausing for a look and a faint smile, +resumed his earnest argument. + +I tell you it was a memorable year! One does not meet such an +Englishman twice in a lifetime. Was he in the mystic ordering of +common events the ambassador of my future, sent out to turn the +scale at a critical moment on the top of an Alpine pass, with the +peaks of the Bernese Oberland for mute and solemn witnesses? His +glance, his smile, the unextinguishable and comic ardour of his +striving-forward appearance, helped me to pull myself together. +It must be stated that on that day and in the exhilarating +atmosphere of that elevated spot I had been feeling utterly +crushed. It was the year in which I had first spoken aloud of my +desire to go to sea. At first like those sounds that, ranging +outside the scale to which men's ears are attuned, remain +inaudible to our sense of hearing, this declaration passed +unperceived. It was as if it had not been. Later on, by trying +various tones, I managed to arouse here and there a surprised +momentary attention--the "What was that funny noise?"--sort of +inquiry. Later on it was: "Did you hear what that boy said? +What an extraordinary outbreak!" Presently a wave of scandalized +astonishment (it could not have been greater if I had announced +the intention of entering a Carthusian monastery) ebbing out of +the educational and academical town of Cracow spread itself over +several provinces. It spread itself shallow but far-reaching. +It stirred up a mass of remonstrance, indignation, pitying +wonder, bitter irony, and downright chaff. I could hardly +breathe under its weight, and certainly had no words for an +answer. People wondered what Mr. T. B. would do now with his +worrying nephew and, I dare say, hoped kindly that he would make +short work of my nonsense. + +What he did was to come down all the way from Ukraine to have it +out with me and to judge by himself, unprejudiced, impartial, and +just, taking his stand on the ground of wisdom and affection. As +far as is possible for a boy whose power of expression is still +unformed I opened the secret of my thoughts to him, and he in +return allowed me a glimpse into his mind and heart; the first +glimpse of an inexhaustible and noble treasure of clear thought +and warm feeling, which through life was to be mine to draw upon +with a never-deceived love and confidence. Practically, after +several exhaustive conversations, he concluded that he would not +have me later on reproach him for having spoiled my life by an +unconditional opposition. But I must take time for serious +reflection. And I must think not only of myself but of others; +weigh the claims of affection and conscience against my own +sincerity of purpose. "Think well what it all means in the +larger issues--my boy," he exhorted me, finally, with special +friendliness. "And meantime try to get the best place you can at +the yearly examinations." + +The scholastic year came to an end. I took a fairly good place +at the exams, which for me (for certain reasons) happened to be a +more difficult task than for other boys. In that respect I could +enter with a good conscience upon that holiday which was like a +long visit pour prendre conge of the mainland of old Europe I was +to see so little of for the next four-and-twenty years. Such, +however, was not the avowed purpose of that tour. It was rather, +I suspect, planned in order to distract and occupy my thoughts in +other directions. Nothing had been said for months of my going +to sea. But my attachment to my young tutor and his influence +over me were so well known that he must have received a +confidential mission to talk me out of my romantic folly. It was +an excellently appropriate arrangement, as neither he nor I had +ever had a single glimpse of the sea in our lives. That was to +come by and by for both of us in Venice, from the outer shore of +Lido. Meantime he had taken his mission to heart so well that I +began to feel crushed before we reached Zurich. He argued in +railway trains, in lake steamboats, he had argued away for me the +obligatory sunrise on the Righi, by Jove! Of his devotion to his +unworthy pupil there can be no doubt. He had proved it already +by two years of unremitting and arduous care. I could not hate +him. But he had been crushing me slowly, and when he started to +argue on the top of the Furca Pass he was perhaps nearer a +success than either he or I imagined. I listened to him in +despairing silence, feeling that ghostly, unrealized, and desired +sea of my dreams escape from the unnerved grip of my will. + +The enthusiastic old Englishman had passed--and the argument went +on. What reward could I expect from such a life at the end of my +years, either in ambition, honour, or conscience? An +unanswerable question. But I felt no longer crushed. Then our +eyes met and a genuine emotion was visible in his as well as in +mine. The end came all at once. He picked up the knapsack +suddenly and got onto his feet. + +"You are an incorrigible, hopeless Don Quixote. That's what you +are." + +I was surprised. I was only fifteen and did not know what he +meant exactly. But I felt vaguely flattered at the name of the +immortal knight turning up in connection with my own folly, as +some people would call it to my face. Alas! I don't think there +was anything to be proud of. Mine was not the stuff of +protectors of forlorn damsels, the redressers of this world's +wrong are made of; and my tutor was the man to know that best. +Therein, in his indignation, he was superior to the barber and +the priest when he flung at me an honoured name like a reproach. + +I walked behind him for full five minutes; then without looking +back he stopped. The shadows of distant peaks were lengthening +over the Furca Pass. When I came up to him he turned to me and +in full view of the Finster Aarhorn, with his band of giant +brothers rearing their monstrous heads against a brilliant sky, +put his hand on my shoulder affectionately. + +"Well! That's enough. We will have no more of it." + +And indeed there was no more question of my mysterious vocation +between us. There was to be no more question of it at all, no +where or with any one. We began the descent of the Furca Pass +conversing merrily. + +Eleven years later, month for month, I stood on Tower Hill on the +steps of the St. Katherine's Dockhouse, a master in the British +Merchant Service. But the man who put his hand on my shoulder at +the top of the Furca Pass was no longer living. + +That very year of our travels he took his degree of the +Philosophical Faculty--and only then his true vocation declared +itself. Obedient to the call, he entered at once upon the +four-year course of the Medical Schools. A day came when, on the +deck of a ship moored in Calcutta, I opened a letter telling me +of the end of an enviable existence. He had made for himself a +practice in some obscure little town of Austrian Galicia. And +the letter went on to tell me how all the bereaved poor of the +district, Christians and Jews alike, had mobbed the good doctor's +coffin with sobs and lamentations at the very gate of the +cemetery. + +How short his years and how clear his vision! What greater +reward in ambition, honour, and conscience could he have hoped to +win for himself when, on the top of the Furca Pass, he bade me +look well to the end of my opening life? + + +III + +The devouring in a dismal forest of a luckless Lithuanian dog by +my granduncle Nicholas B. in company of two other military and +famished scarecrows, symbolized, to my childish imagination, the +whole horror of the retreat from Moscow, and the immorality of a +conqueror's ambition. An extreme distaste for that objectionable +episode has tinged the views I hold as to the character and +achievements of Napoleon the Great. I need not say that these +are unfavourable. It was morally reprehensible for that great +captain to induce a simple-minded Polish gentleman to eat dog by +raising in his breast a false hope of national independence. It +has been the fate of that credulous nation to starve for upward +of a hundred years on a diet of false hopes and--well--dog. It +is, when one thinks of it, a singularly poisonous regimen. Some +pride in the national constitution which has survived a long +course of such dishes is really excusable. + +But enough of generalizing. Returning to particulars, Mr. +Nicholas B. confided to his sister-in-law (my grandmother) in his +misanthropically laconic manner that this supper in the woods had +been nearly "the death of him." This is not surprising. What +surprises me is that the story was ever heard of; for granduncle +Nicholas differed in this from the generality of military men of +Napoleon's time (and perhaps of all time) that he did not like to +talk of his campaigns, which began at Friedland and ended some +where in the neighbourhood of Bar-le-Duc. His admiration of the +great Emperor was unreserved in everything but expression. Like +the religion of earnest men, it was too profound a sentiment to +be displayed before a world of little faith. Apart from that he +seemed as completely devoid of military anecdotes as though he +had hardly ever seen a soldier in his life. Proud of his +decorations earned before he was twenty-five, he refused to wear +the ribbons at the buttonhole in the manner practised to this day +in Europe and even was unwilling to display the insignia on +festive occasions, as though he wished to conceal them in the +fear of appearing boastful. + +"It is enough that I have them," he used to mutter. In the +course of thirty years they were seen on his breast only +twice--at an auspicious marriage in the family and at the funeral +of an old friend. That the wedding which was thus honoured was +not the wedding of my mother I learned only late in life, too +late to bear a grudge against Mr. Nicholas B., who made amends at +my birth by a long letter of congratulation containing the +following prophecy: "He will see better times." Even in his +embittered heart there lived a hope. But he was not a true +prophet. + +He was a man of strange contradictions. Living for many years in +his brother's house, the home of many children, a house full of +life, of animation, noisy with a constant coming and going of +many guests, he kept his habits of solitude and silence. +Considered as obstinately secretive in all his purposes, he was +in reality the victim of a most painful irresolution in all +matters of civil life. Under his taciturn, phlegmatic behaviour +was hidden a faculty of short-lived passionate anger. I suspect +he had no talent for narrative; but it seemed to afford him +sombre satisfaction to declare that he was the last man to ride +over the bridge of the river Elster after the battle of Leipsic. +Lest some construction favourable to his valour should be put on +the fact he condescended to explain how it came to pass. It +seems that shortly after the retreat began he was sent back to +the town where some divisions of the French army (and among them +the Polish corps of Prince Joseph Poniatowski), jammed hopelessly +in the streets, were being simply exterminated by the troops of +the Allied Powers. When asked what it was like in there, Mr. +Nicholas B. muttered only the word "Shambles." Having delivered +his message to the Prince he hastened away at once to render an +account of his mission to the superior who had sent him. By that +time the advance of the enemy had enveloped the town, and he was +shot at from houses and chased all the way to the river-bank by a +disorderly mob of Austrian Dragoons and Prussian Hussars. The +bridge had been mined early in the morning, and his opinion was +that the sight of the horsemen converging from many sides in the +pursuit of his person alarmed the officer in command of the +sappers and caused the premature firing of the charges. He had +not gone more than two hundred yards on the other side when he +heard the sound of the fatal explosions. Mr. Nicholas B. +concluded his bald narrative with the word "Imbecile," uttered +with the utmost deliberation. It testified to his indignation at +the loss of so many thousands of lives. But his phlegmatic +physiognomy lighted up when he spoke of his only wound, with +something resembling satisfaction. You will see that there was +some reason for it when you learn that he was wounded in the +heel. "Like his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon himself," he +reminded his hearers, with assumed indifference. There can be no +doubt that the indifference was assumed, if one thinks what a +very distinguished sort of wound it was. In all the history of +warfare there are, I believe, only three warriors publicly known +to have been wounded in the heel--Achilles and Napoleon--demigods +indeed--to whom the familial piety of an unworthy descendant adds +the name of the simple mortal, Nicholas B. + +The Hundred Days found Mr. Nicholas B. staying with a distant +relative of ours, owner of a small estate in Galicia. How he got +there across the breadth of an armed Europe, and after what +adventures, I am afraid will never be known now. All his papers +were destroyed shortly before his death; but if there was among +them, as he affirmed, a concise record of his life, then I am +pretty sure it did not take up more than a half sheet of foolscap +or so. This relative of ours happened to be an Austrian officer +who had left the service after the battle of Austerlitz. Unlike +Mr. Nicholas B., who concealed his decorations, he liked to +display his honourable discharge in which he was mentioned as un +schreckbar (fearless) before the enemy. No conjunction could +seem more unpromising, yet it stands in the family tradition that +these two got on very well together in their rural solitude. + +When asked whether he had not been sorely tempted during the +Hundred Days to make his way again to France and join the service +of his beloved Emperor, Mr. Nicholas B. used to mutter: "No +money. No horse. Too far to walk." + +The fall of Napoleon and the ruin of national hopes affected +adversely the character of Mr. Nicholas B. He shrank from +returning to his province. But for that there was also another +reason. Mr. Nicholas B. and his brother--my maternal grand +father--had lost their father early, while they were quite +children. Their mother, young still and left very well off, +married again a man of great charm and of an amiable disposition, +but without a penny. He turned out an affectionate and careful +stepfather; it was unfortunate, though, that while directing the +boys' education and forming their character by wise counsel, he +did his best to get hold of the fortune by buying and selling +land in his own name and investing capital in such a manner as to +cover up the traces of the real ownership. It seems that such +practices can be successful if one is charming enough to dazzle +one's own wife permanently, and brave enough to defy the vain +terrors of public opinion. The critical time came when the elder +of the boys on attaining his majority, in the year 1811, asked +for the accounts and some part at least of the inheritance to +begin life upon. It was then that the stepfather declared with +calm finality that there were no accounts to render and no +property to inherit. The whole fortune was his very own. He was +very good-natured about the young man's misapprehension of the +true state of affairs, but, of course, felt obliged to maintain +his position firmly. Old friends came and went busily, voluntary +mediators appeared travelling on most horrible roads from the +most distant corners of the three provinces; and the Marshal of +the Nobility (ex-officio guardian of all well-born orphans) +called a meeting of landowners to "ascertain in a friendly way +how the misunderstanding between X and his stepsons had arisen +and devise proper measures to remove the same." A deputation to +that effect visited X, who treated them to excellent wines, but +absolutely refused his ear to their remonstrances. As to the +proposals for arbitration he simply laughed at them; yet the +whole province must have been aware that fourteen years before, +when he married the widow, all his visible fortune consisted +(apart from his social qualities) in a smart four-horse turnout +with two servants, with whom he went about visiting from house to +house; and as to any funds he might have possessed at that time +their existence could only be inferred from the fact that he was +very punctual in settling his modest losses at cards. But by the +magic power of stubborn and constant assertion, there were found +presently, here and there, people who mumbled that surely "there +must be some thing in it." However, on his next name-day (which +he used to celebrate by a great three days' shooting party), of +all the invited crowd only two guests turned up, distant +neighbours of no importance; one notoriously a fool, and the +other a very pious and honest person, but such a passionate lover +of the gun that on his own confession he could not have refused +an invitation to a shooting party from the devil himself. X met +this manifestation of public opinion with the serenity of an +unstained conscience. He refused to be crushed. Yet he must +have been a man of deep feeling, because, when his wife took +openly the part of her children, he lost his beautiful +tranquillity, proclaimed himself heartbroken, and drove her out +of the house, neglecting in his grief to give her enough time to +pack her trunks. + +This was the beginning of a lawsuit, an abominable marvel of +chicane, which by the use of every legal subterfuge was made to +last for many years. It was also the occasion for a display of +much kindness and sympathy. All the neighbouring houses flew +open for the reception of the homeless. Neither legal aid nor +material assistance in the prosecution of the suit was ever +wanting. X, on his side, went about shedding tears publicly over +his stepchildren's ingratitude and his wife's blind infatuation; +but as at the same time he displayed great cleverness in the art +of concealing material documents (he was even suspected of having +burned a lot of historically interesting family papers) this +scandalous litigation had to be ended by a compromise lest worse +should befall. It was settled finally by a surrender, out of the +disputed estate, in full satisfaction of all claims, of two +villages with the names of which I do not intend to trouble my +readers. After this lame and impotent conclusion neither the +wife nor the stepsons had anything to say to the man who had +presented the world with such a successful example of self-help +based on character, determination, and industry; and my +great-grandmother, her health completely broken down, died a +couple of years later in Carlsbad. Legally secured by a decree +in the possession of his plunder, X regained his wonted serenity, +and went on living in the neighbourhood in a comfortable style +and in apparent peace of mind. His big shoots were fairly well +attended again. He was never tired of assuring people that he +bore no grudge for what was past; he protested loudly of his +constant affection for his wife and stepchildren. It was true, +he said, that they had tried to strip him as naked as a Turkish +saint in the decline of his days; and because he had defended +himself from spoliation, as anybody else in his place would have +done, they had abandoned him now to the horrors of a solitary old +age. Nevertheless, his love for them survived these cruel blows. + +And there might have been some truth in his protestations. Very +soon he began to make overtures of friendship to his eldest +stepson, my maternal grandfather; and when these were +peremptorily rejected he went on renewing them again and again +with characteristic obstinacy. For years he persisted in his +efforts at reconciliation, promising my grandfather to execute a +will in his favour if he only would be friends again to the +extent of calling now and then (it was fairly close neighbourhood +for these parts, forty miles or so), or even of putting in an +appearance for the great shoot on the name-day. My grandfather +was an ardent lover of every sport. His temperament was as free +from hardness and animosity as can be imagined. Pupil of the +liberal-minded Benedictines who directed the only public school +of some standing then in the south, he had also read deeply the +authors of the eighteenth century. In him Christian charity was +joined to a philosophical indulgence for the failings of human +nature. But the memory of those miserably anxious early years, +his young man's years robbed of all generous illusions by the +cynicism of the sordid lawsuit, stood in the way of forgiveness. +He never succumbed to the fascination of the great shoot; and X, +his heart set to the last on reconciliation, with the draft of +the will ready for signature kept by his bedside, died intestate. + +The fortune thus acquired and augmented by a wise and careful +management passed to some distant relatives whom he had never +seen and who even did not bear his name. + +Meantime the blessing of general peace descended upon Europe. +Mr. Nicholas B., bidding good-bye to his hospitable relative, +the "fearless" Austrian officer, departed from Galicia, and +without going near his native place, where the odious lawsuit was +still going on, proceeded straight to Warsaw and entered the army +of the newly constituted Polish kingdom under the sceptre of +Alexander I, Autocrat of all the Russias. + +This kingdom, created by the Vienna Congress as an acknowledgment +to a nation of its former independent existence, included only +the central provinces of the old Polish patrimony. A brother of +the Emperor, the Grand Duke Constantine (Pavlovitch), its Viceroy +and Commander-in-Chief, married morganatically to a Polish lady +to whom he was fiercely attached, extended this affection to what +he called "My Poles" in a capricious and savage manner. Sallow +in complexion, with a Tartar physiognomy and fierce little eyes, +he walked with his fists clenched, his body bent forward, darting +suspicious glances from under an enormous cocked hat. His +intelligence was limited, and his sanity itself was doubtful. +The hereditary taint expressed itself, in his case, not by mystic +leanings as in his two brothers, Alexander and Nicholas (in their +various ways, for one was mystically liberal and the other +mystically autocratic), but by the fury of an uncontrollable +temper which generally broke out in disgusting abuse on the +parade ground. He was a passionate militarist and an amazing +drill-master. He treated his Polish army as a spoiled child +treats a favourite toy, except that he did not take it to bed +with him at night. It was not small enough for that. But he +played with it all day and every day, delighting in the variety +of pretty uniforms and in the fun of incessant drilling. This +childish passion, not for war, but for mere militarism, achieved +a desirable result. The Polish army, in its equipment, in its +armament, and in its battle-field efficiency, as then understood, +became, by the end of the year 1830, a first-rate tactical +instrument. Polish peasantry (not serfs) served in the ranks by +enlistment, and the officers belonged mainly to the smaller +nobility. Mr. Nicholas B., with his Napoleonic record, had no +difficulty in obtaining a lieutenancy, but the promotion in the +Polish army was slow, because, being a separate organization, it +took no part in the wars of the Russian Empire against either +Persia or Turkey. Its first campaign, against Russia itself, was +to be its last. In 1831, on the outbreak of the Revolution, Mr. +Nicholas B. was the senior captain of his regiment. Some time +before he had been made head of the remount establishment +quartered outside the kingdom in our southern provinces, whence +almost all the horses for the Polish cavalry were drawn. For the +first time since he went away from home at the age of eighteen to +begin his military life by the battle of Friedland, Mr. Nicholas +B. breathed the air of the "Border," his native air. Unkind fate +was lying in wait for him among the scenes of his youth. At the +first news of the rising in Warsaw all the remount establishment, +officers, "vets.," and the very troopers, were put promptly under +arrest and hurried off in a body beyond the Dnieper to the +nearest town in Russia proper. From there they were dispersed to +the distant parts of the empire. On this occasion poor Mr. +Nicholas B. penetrated into Russia much farther than he ever did +in the times of Napoleonic invasion, if much less willingly. +Astrakan was his destination. He remained there three years, +allowed to live at large in the town, but having to report +himself every day at noon to the military commandant, who used to +detain him frequently for a pipe and a chat. It is difficult to +form a just idea of what a chat with Mr. Nicholas B. could have +been like. There must have been much compressed rage under his +taciturnity, for the commandant communicated to him the news from +the theatre of war, and this news was such as it could be--that +is, very bad for the Poles. Mr. Nicholas B. received these +communications with outward phlegm, but the Russian showed a warm +sympathy for his prisoner. "As a soldier myself I understand +your feelings. You, of course, would like to be in the thick of +it. By heavens! I am fond of you. If it were not for the terms +of the military oath I would let you go on my own responsibility. + +What difference could it make to us, one more or less of you?" + +At other times he wondered with simplicity. + +"Tell me, Nicholas Stepanovitch" (my great-grandfather's name was +Stephen, and the commandant used the Russian form of polite +address)--"tell me why is it that you Poles are always looking +for trouble? What else could you expect from running up against +Russia?" + +He was capable, too, of philosophical reflections. + +"Look at your Napoleon now. A great man. There is no denying it +that he was a great man as long as he was content to thrash those +Germans and Austrians and all those nations. But no! He must go +to Russia looking for trouble, and what's the consequence? Such +as you see me; I have rattled this sabre of mine on the pavements +of Paris." + +After his return to Poland Mr. Nicholas B. described him as a +"worthy man but stupid," whenever he could be induced to speak of +the conditions of his exile. Declining the option offered him to +enter the Russian army, he was retired with only half the pension +of his rank. His nephew (my uncle and guardian) told me that the +first lasting impression on his memory as a child of four was the +glad excitement reigning in his parents' house on the day when +Mr. Nicholas B. arrived home from his detention in Russia. + +Every generation has its memories. The first memories of Mr. +Nicholas B. might have been shaped by the events of the last +partition of Poland, and he lived long enough to suffer from the +last armed rising in 1863, an event which affected the future of +all my generation and has coloured my earliest impressions. His +brother, in whose house he had sheltered for some seventeen years +his misanthropical timidity before the commonest problems of +life, having died in the early fifties, Mr. Nicholas B. had to +screw his courage up to the sticking-point and come to some +decision as to the future. After a long and agonizing hesitation +he was persuaded at last to become the tenant of some fifteen +hundred acres out of the estate of a friend in the neighbourhood. + +The terms of the lease were very advantageous, but the retired +situation of the village and a plain, comfortable house in good +repair were, I fancy, the greatest inducements. He lived there +quietly for about ten years, seeing very few people and taking no +part in the public life of the province, such as it could be +under an arbitrary bureaucratic tyranny. His character and his +patriotism were above suspicion; but the organizers of the rising +in their frequent journeys up and down the province scrupulously +avoided coming near his house. It was generally felt that the +repose of the old man's last years ought not to be disturbed. +Even such intimates as my paternal grandfather, comrade-in-arms +during Napoleon's Moscow campaign, and later on a fellow officer +in the Polish army, refrained from visiting his crony as the date +of the outbreak approached. My paternal grandfather's two sons +and his only daughter were all deeply involved in the +revolutionary work; he himself was of that type of Polish squire +whose only ideal of patriotic action was to "get into the saddle +and drive them out." But even he agreed that "dear Nicholas must +not be worried." All this considerate caution on the part of +friends, both conspirators and others, did not prevent Mr. +Nicholas B. being made to feel the misfortunes of that ill-omened +year. + +Less than forty-eight hours after the beginning of the rebellion +in that part of the country, a squadron of scouting Cossacks +passed through the village and invaded the homestead. Most of +them remained, formed between the house and the stables, while +several, dismounting, ransacked the various outbuildings. The +officer in command, accompanied by two men, walked up to the +front door. All the blinds on that side were down. The officer +told the servant who received him that he wanted to see his +master. He was answered that the master was away from home, which +was perfectly true. + +I follow here the tale as told afterward by the servant to my +granduncle's friends and relatives, and as I have heard it +repeated. + +On receiving this answer the Cossack officer, who had been +standing in the porch, stepped into the house. + +"Where is the master gone, then?" + +"Our master went to J----" (the government town some fifty miles +off) "the day before yesterday." + +"There are only two horses in the stables. Where are the +others?" + +"Our master always travels with his own horses" (meaning: not by +post). "He will be away a week or more. He was pleased to +mention to me that he had to attend to some business in the Civil +Court." + +While the servant was speaking the officer looked about the hall. + +There was a door facing him, a door to the right, and a door to +the left. The officer chose to enter the room on the left, and +ordered the blinds to be pulled up. It was Mr. Nicholas B.'s +study, with a couple of tall bookcases, some pictures on the +walls, and so on. Besides the big centre-table, with books and +papers, there was a quite small writing-table, with several +drawers, standing between the door and the window in a good +light; and at this table my granduncle usually sat either to read +or write. + +On pulling up the blind the servant was startled by the discovery +that the whole male population of the village was massed in +front, trampling down the flower-beds. There were also a few +women among them. He was glad to observe the village priest (of +the Orthodox Church) coming up the drive. The good man in his +haste had tucked up his cassock as high as the top of his boots. + +The officer had been looking at the backs of the books in the +bookcases. Then he perched himself on the edge of the centre +table and remarked easily: + +"Your master did not take you to town with him, then?" + +"I am the head servant, and he leaves me in charge of the house. +It's a strong, young chap that travels with our master. If--God +forbid--there was some accident on the road, he would be of much +more use than I." + +Glancing through the window, he saw the priest arguing vehemently +in the thick of the crowd, which seemed subdued by his +interference. Three or four men, however, were talking with the +Cossacks at the door. + +"And you don't think your master has gone to join the rebels +maybe--eh?" asked the officer. + +"Our master would be too old for that, surely. He's well over +seventy, and he's getting feeble, too. It's some years now since +he's been on horseback, and he can't walk much, either, now." + +The officer sat there swinging his leg, very quiet and +indifferent. By that time the peasants who had been talking with +the Cossack troopers at the door had been permitted to get into +the hall. One or two more left the crowd and followed them in. +They were seven in all, and among them the blacksmith, an +ex-soldier. The servant appealed deferentially to the officer. + +"Won't your honour be pleased to tell the people to go back to +their homes? What do they want to push themselves into the house +like this for? It's not proper for them to behave like this +while our master's away and I am responsible for everything +here." + +The officer only laughed a little, and after a while inquired: + +"Have you any arms in the house?" + +"Yes. We have. Some old things." + +"Bring them all here, onto this table." + +The servant made another attempt to obtain protection. + +"Won't your honour tell these chaps. . . ?" + +But the officer looked at him in silence, in such a way that he +gave it up at once and hurried off to call the pantry-boy to help +him collect the arms. Meantime, the officer walked slowly +through all the rooms in the house, examining them attentively +but touching nothing. The peasants in the hall fell back and +took off their caps when he passed through. He said nothing +whatever to them. When he came back to the study all the arms to +be found in the house were lying on the table. There was a pair +of big, flint-lock holster pistols from Napoleonic times, two +cavalry swords, one of the French, the other of the Polish army +pattern, with a fowling-piece or two. + +The officer, opening the window, flung out pistols, swords, and +guns, one after another, and his troopers ran to pick them up. +The peasants in the hall, encouraged by his manner, had stolen +after him into the study. He gave not the slightest sign of +being conscious of their existence, and, his business being +apparently concluded, strode out of the house without a word. +Directly he left, the peasants in the study put on their caps and +began to smile at each other. + +The Cossacks rode away, passing through the yards of the home +farm straight into the fields. The priest, still arguing with +the peasants, moved gradually down the drive and his earnest +eloquence was drawing the silent mob after him, away from the +house. This justice must be rendered to the parish priests of +the Greek Church that, strangers to the country as they were +(being all drawn from the interior of Russia), the majority of +them used such influence as they had over their flocks in the +cause of peace and humanity. True to the spirit of their +calling, they tried to soothe the passions of the excited +peasantry, and opposed rapine and violence, whenever they could, +with all their might. And this conduct they pursued against the +express wishes of the authorities. Later on some of them were +made to suffer for this disobedience by being removed abruptly to +the far north or sent away to Siberian parishes. + +The servant was anxious to get rid of the few peasants who had +got into the house. What sort of conduct was that, he asked +them, toward a man who was only a tenant, had been invariably +good and considerate to the villagers for years, and only the +other day had agreed to give up two meadows for the use of the +village herd? He reminded them, too, of Mr. Nicholas B.'s +devotion to the sick in time of cholera. Every word of this was +true, and so far effective that the fellows began to scratch +their heads and look irresolute. The speaker then pointed at the +window, exclaiming: "Look! there's all your crowd going away +quietly, and you silly chaps had better go after them and pray +God to forgive you your evil thoughts." + +This appeal was an unlucky inspiration. + +In crowding clumsily to the window to see whether he was speaking +the truth, the fellows overturned the little writing-table. As +it fell over a chink of loose coin was heard. "There's money in +that thing," cried the blacksmith. In a moment the top of the +delicate piece of furniture was smashed and there lay exposed in +a drawer eighty half imperials. Gold coin was a rare sight in +Russia even at that time; it put the peasants beside themselves. +"There must be more of that in the house, and we shall have it," +yelled the ex-soldier blacksmith. "This is war-time." The +others were already shouting out of the window, urging the crowd +to come back and help. The priest, abandoned suddenly at the +gate, flung his arms up and hurried away so as not to see what +was going to happen. + +In their search for money that bucolic mob smashed everything in +the house, ripping with knives, splitting with hatchets, so that, +as the servant said, there were no two pieces of wood holding +together left in the whole house. They broke some very fine +mirrors, all the windows, and every piece of glass and china. +They threw the books and papers out on the lawn and set fire to +the heap for the mere fun of the thing, apparently. Absolutely +the only one solitary thing which they left whole was a small +ivory crucifix, which remained hanging on the wall in the wrecked +bedroom above a wild heap of rags, broken mahogany, and +splintered boards which had been Mr. Nicholas B.'s bedstead. +Detecting the servant in the act of stealing away with a japanned +tin box, they tore it from him, and because he resisted they +threw him out of the dining-room window. The house was on one +floor, but raised well above the ground, and the fall was so +serious that the man remained lying stunned till the cook and a +stable-boy ventured forth at dusk from their hiding-places and +picked him up. But by that time the mob had departed, carrying +off the tin box, which they supposed to be full of paper money. +Some distance from the house, in the middle of a field, they +broke it open. They found in side documents engrossed on +parchment and the two crosses of the Legion of Honour and For +Valour. At the sight of these objects, which, the blacksmith +explained, were marks of honour given only by the Tsar, they +became extremely frightened at what they had done. They threw the +whole lot away into a ditch and dispersed hastily. + +On learning of this particular loss Mr. Nicholas B. broke down +completely. The mere sacking of his house did not seem to affect +him much. While he was still in bed from the shock, the two +crosses were found and returned to him. It helped somewhat his +slow convalescence, but the tin box and the parchments, though +searched for in all the ditches around, never turned up again. +He could not get over the loss of his Legion of Honour Patent, +whose preamble, setting forth his services, he knew by heart to +the very letter, and after this blow volunteered sometimes to +recite, tears standing in his eyes the while. Its terms haunted +him apparently during the last two years of his life to such an +extent that he used to repeat them to himself. This is confirmed +by the remark made more than once by his old servant to the more +intimate friends. "What makes my heart heavy is to hear our +master in his room at night walking up and down and praying aloud +in the French language." + +It must have been somewhat over a year afterward that I saw Mr. +Nicholas B.--or, more correctly, that he saw me--for the last +time. It was, as I have already said, at the time when my mother +had a three months' leave from exile, which she was spending in +the house of her brother, and friends and relations were coming +from far and near to do her honour. It is inconceivable that Mr. +Nicholas B. should not have been of the number. The little child +a few months old he had taken up in his arms on the day of his +home-coming, after years of war and exile, was confessing her +faith in national salvation by suffering exile in her turn. I do +not know whether he was present on the very day of our departure. + +I have already admitted that for me he is more especially the man +who in his youth had eaten roast dog in the depths of a gloomy +forest of snow-loaded pines. My memory cannot place him in any +remembered scene. A hooked nose, some sleek white hair, an +unrelated evanescent impression of a meagre, slight, rigid figure +militarily buttoned up to the throat, is all that now exists on +earth of Mr. Nicholas B.; only this vague shadow pursued by the +memory of his grandnephew, the last surviving human being, I +suppose, of all those he had seen in the course of his taciturn +life. + +But I remember well the day of our departure back to exile. The +elongated, bizarre, shabby travelling-carriage with four +post-horses, standing before the long front of the house with its +eight columns, four on each side of the broad flight of stairs. +On the steps, groups of servants, a few relations, one or two +friends from the nearest neighbourhood, a perfect silence; on all +the faces an air of sober concentration; my grandmother, all in +black, gazing stoically; my uncle giving his arm to my mother +down to the carriage in which I had been placed already; at the +top of the flight my little cousin in a short skirt of a tartan +pattern with a deal of red in it, and like a small princess +attended by the women of her own household; the head gouvernante, +our dear, corpulent Francesca (who had been for thirty years in +the service of the B. family), the former nurse, now outdoor +attendant, a handsome peasant face wearing a compassionate +expression, and the good, ugly Mlle. Durand, the governess, with +her black eyebrows meeting over a short, thick nose, and a +complexion like pale-brown paper. Of all the eyes turned toward +the carriage, her good-natured eyes only were dropping tears, and +it was her sobbing voice alone that broke the silence with an +appeal to me: "N'oublie pas ton francais, mon cheri." In three +months, simply by playing with us, she had taught me not only to +speak French, but to read it as well. She was indeed an +excellent playmate. In the distance, half-way down to the great +gates, a light, open trap, harnessed with three horses in Russian +fashion, stood drawn up on one side, with the police captain of +the district sitting in it, the vizor of his flat cap with a red +band pulled down over his eyes. + +It seems strange that he should have been there to watch our +going so carefully. Without wishing to treat with levity the +just timidites of Imperialists all the world over, I may allow +myself the reflection that a woman, practically condemned by the +doctors, and a small boy not quite six years old, could not be +regarded as seriously dangerous, even for the largest of +conceivable empires saddled with the most sacred of +responsibilities. And this good man I believe did not think so, +either. + +I learned afterward why he was present on that day. I don't +remember any outward signs; but it seems that, about a month +before, my mother became so unwell that there was a doubt whether +she could be made fit to travel in the time. In this uncertainty +the Governor-General in Kiev was petitioned to grant her a +fortnight's extension of stay in her brother's house. No answer +whatever was returned to this prayer, but one day at dusk the +police captain of the district drove up to the house and told my +uncle's valet, who ran out to meet him, that he wanted to speak +with the master in private, at once. Very much impressed (he +thought it was going to be an arrest), the servant, "more dead +than alive with fright," as he related afterward, smuggled him +through the big drawing-room, which was dark (that room was not +lighted every evening), on tiptoe, so as not to attract the +attention of the ladies in the house, and led him by way of the +orangery to my uncle's private apartments. + +The policeman, without any preliminaries, thrust a paper into my +uncle's hands. + +"There. Pray read this. I have no business to show this paper +to you. It is wrong of me. But I can't either eat or sleep with +such a job hanging over me." + +That police captain, a native of Great Russia, had been for many +years serving in the district. + +My uncle unfolded and read the document. It was a service order +issued from the Governor-General's secretariat, dealing with the +matter of the petition and directing the police captain to +disregard all remonstrances and explanations in regard to that +illness either from medical men or others, "and if she has not +left her brother's house"--it went on to say--"on the morning of +the day specified on her permit, you are to despatch her at once +under escort, direct" (underlined) "to the prison-hospital in +Kiev, where she will be treated as her case demands." + +"For God's sake, Mr. B., see that your sister goes away +punctually on that day. Don't give me this work to do with a +woman--and with one of your family, too. I simply cannot bear to +think of it." + +He was absolutely wringing his hands. My uncle looked at him in +silence. + +"Thank you for this warning. I assure you that even if she were +dying she would be carried out to the carriage." + +"Yes--indeed--and what difference would it make--travel to Kiev +or back to her husband? For she would have to go--death or no +death. And mind, Mr. B., I will be here on the day, not that I +doubt your promise, but because I must. I have got to. Duty. +All the same my trade is not fit for a dog since some of you +Poles will persist in rebelling, and all of you have got to +suffer for it." + +This is the reason why he was there in an open three-horse trap +pulled up between the house and the great gates. I regret not +being able to give up his name to the scorn of all believers in +the right of conquest, as a reprehensibly sensitive guardian of +Imperial greatness. On the other hand, I am in a position to +state the name of the Governor-General who signed the order with +the marginal note "to be carried out to the letter" in his own +handwriting. The gentleman's name was Bezak. A high dignitary, +an energetic official, the idol for a time of the Russian +patriotic press. + +Each generation has its memories. + + +IV + +It must not be supposed that, in setting forth the memories of +this half-hour between the moment my uncle left my room till we +met again at dinner, I am losing sight of "Almayer's Folly." +Having confessed that my first novel was begun in idleness--a +holiday task--I think I have also given the impression that it +was a much-delayed book. It was never dismissed from my mind, +even when the hope of ever finishing it was very faint. Many +things came in its way: daily duties, new impressions, old +memories. It was not the outcome of a need--the famous need of +self-expression which artists find in their search for motives. +The necessity which impelled me was a hidden, obscure necessity, +a completely masked and unaccountable phenomenon. Or perhaps +some idle and frivolous magician (there must be magicians in +London) had cast a spell over me through his parlour window as I +explored the maze of streets east and west in solitary leisurely +walks without chart and compass. Till I began to write that +novel I had written nothing but letters, and not very many of +these. I never made a note of a fact, of an impression, or of an +anecdote in my life. The conception of a planned book was +entirely outside my mental range when I sat down to write; the +ambition of being an author had never turned up among those +gracious imaginary existences one creates fondly for oneself at +times in the stillness and immobility of a day-dream: yet it +stands clear as the sun at noonday that from the moment I had +done blackening over the first manuscript page of "Almayer's +Folly" (it contained about two hundred words and this proportion +of words to a page has remained with me through the fifteen years +of my writing life), from the moment I had, in the simplicity of +my heart and the amazing ignorance of my mind, written that page +the die was cast. Never had Rubicon been more blindly forded +without invocation to the gods, without fear of men. + +That morning I got up from my breakfast, pushing the chair back, +and rang the bell violently, or perhaps I should say resolutely, +or perhaps I should say eagerly--I do not know. But manifestly +it must have been a special ring of the bell, a common sound made +impressive, like the ringing of a bell for the raising of the +curtain upon a new scene. It was an unusual thing for me to do. +Generally, I dawdled over my breakfast and I seldom took the +trouble to ring the bell for the table to be cleared away; but on +that morning, for some reason hidden in the general +mysteriousness of the event, I did not dawdle. And yet I was not +in a hurry. I pulled the cord casually, and while the faint +tinkling somewhere down in the basement went on, I charged my +pipe in the usual way and I looked for the match-box with glances +distraught indeed, but exhibiting, I am ready to swear, no signs +of a fine frenzy. I was composed enough to perceive after some +considerable time the match-box lying there on the mantelpiece +right under my nose. And all this was beautifully and safely +usual. Before I had thrown down the match my landlady's daughter +appeared with her calm, pale face and an inquisitive look, in the +doorway. Of late it was the landlady's daughter who answered my +bell. I mention this little fact with pride, because it proves +that during the thirty or forty days of my tenancy I had produced +a favourable impression. For a fortnight past I had been spared +the unattractive sight of the domestic slave. The girls in that +Bessborough Gardens house were often changed, but whether short +or long, fair or dark, they were always untidy and particularly +bedraggled, as if in a sordid version of the fairy tale the +ash-bin cat had been changed into a maid. I was infinitely +sensible of the privilege of being waited on by my landlady's +daughter. She was neat if anemic. + +"Will you please clear away all this at once?" I addressed her +in convulsive accents, being at the same time engaged in getting +my pipe to draw. This, I admit, was an unusual request. +Generally, on getting up from breakfast I would sit down in the +window with a book and let them clear the table when they liked; +but if you think that on that morning I was in the least +impatient, you are mistaken. I remember that I was perfectly +calm. As a matter of fact I was not at all certain that I wanted +to write, or that I meant to write, or that I had anything to +write about. No, I was not impatient. I lounged between the +mantelpiece and the window, not even consciously waiting for the +table to be cleared. It was ten to one that before my landlady's +daughter was done I would pick up a book and sit down with it all +the morning in a spirit of enjoyable indolence. I affirm it with +assurance, and I don't even know now what were the books then +lying about the room. What ever they were, they were not the +works of great masters, where the secret of clear thought and +exact expression can be found. Since the age of five I have been +a great reader, as is not perhaps wonderful in a child who was +never aware of learning to read. At ten years of age I had read +much of Victor Hugo and other romantics. I had read in Polish +and in French, history, voyages, novels; I knew "Gil Blas" and +"Don Quixote" in abridged editions; I had read in early boyhood +Polish poets and some French poets, but I cannot say what I read +on the evening before I began to write myself. I believe it was +a novel, and it is quite possible that it was one of Anthony +Trollope's novels. It is very likely. My acquaintance with him +was then very recent. He is one of the English novelists whose +works I read for the first time in English. With men of European +reputation, with Dickens and Walter Scott and Thackeray, it was +otherwise. My first introduction to English imaginative +literature was "Nicholas Nickleby." It is extraordinary how well +Mrs. Nickleby could chatter disconnectedly in Polish and the +sinister Ralph rage in that language. As to the Crummles family +and the family of the learned Squeers it seemed as natural to +them as their native speech. It was, I have no doubt, an +excellent translation. This must have been in the year '70. But +I really believe that I am wrong. That book was not my first +introduction to English literature. My first acquaintance was +(or were) the "Two Gentlemen of Verona," and that in the very MS. +of my father's translation. It was during our exile in Russia, +and it must have been less than a year after my mother's death, +because I remember myself in the black blouse with a white border +of my heavy mourning. We were living together, quite alone, in a +small house on the outskirts of the town of T----. That +afternoon, instead of going out to play in the large yard which +we shared with our landlord, I had lingered in the room in which +my father generally wrote. What emboldened me to clamber into +his chair I am sure I don't know, but a couple of hours afterward +he discovered me kneeling in it with my elbows on the table and +my head held in both hands over the MS. of loose pages. I was +greatly confused, expecting to get into trouble. He stood in the +doorway looking at me with some surprise, but the only thing he +said after a moment of silence was: + +"Read the page aloud." + +Luckily the page lying before me was not overblotted with +erasures and corrections, and my father's handwriting was +otherwise extremely legible. When I got to the end he nodded, +and I flew out-of-doors, thinking myself lucky to have escaped +reproof for that piece of impulsive audacity. I have tried to +discover since the reason for this mildness, and I imagine that +all unknown to myself I had earned, in my father's mind, the +right to some latitude in my relations with his writing-table. +It was only a month before--or perhaps it was only a week +before--that I had read to him aloud from beginning to end, and +to his perfect satisfaction, as he lay on his bed, not being very +well at the time, the proofs of his translation of Victor Hugo's +"Toilers of the Sea." Such was my title to consideration, I +believe, and also my first introduction to the sea in literature. + +If I do not remember where, how, and when I learned to read, I am +not likely to forget the process of being trained in the art of +reading aloud. My poor father, an admirable reader himself, was +the most exacting of masters. I reflect proudly that I must have +read that page of "Two Gentlemen of Verona" tolerably well at the +age of eight. The next time I met them was in a 5s. one-volume +edition of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, read in +Falmouth, at odd moments of the day, to the noisy accompaniment +of calkers' mallets driving oakum into the deck-seams of a ship +in dry-dock. We had run in, in a sinking condition and with the +crew refusing duty after a month of weary battling with the gales +of the North Atlantic. Books are an integral part of one's life, +and my Shakespearian associations are with that first year of our +bereavement, the last I spent with my father in exile (he sent me +away to Poland to my mother's brother directly he could brace +himself up for the separation), and with the year of hard gales, +the year in which I came nearest to death at sea, first by water +and then by fire. + +Those things I remember, but what I was reading the day before my +writing life began I have forgotten. I have only a vague notion +that it might have been one of Trollope's political novels. And +I remember, too, the character of the day. It was an autumn day +with an opaline atmosphere, a veiled, semi-opaque, lustrous day, +with fiery points and flashes of red sunlight on the roofs and +windows opposite, while the trees of the square, with all their +leaves gone, were like the tracings of India ink on a sheet of +tissue-paper. It was one of those London days that have the charm +of mysterious amenity, of fascinating softness. The effect of +opaline mist was often repeated at Bessborough Gardens on account +of the nearness to the river. + +There is no reason why I should remember that effect more on that +day than on any other day, except that I stood for a long time +looking out of the window after the landlady's daughter was gone +with her spoil of cups and saucers. I heard her put the tray +down in the passage and finally shut the door; and still I +remained smoking, with my back to the room. It is very clear +that I was in no haste to take the plunge into my writing life, +if as plunge this first attempt may be described. My whole being +was steeped deep in the indolence of a sailor away from the sea, +the scene of never-ending labour and of unceasing duty. For +utter surrender to in indolence you cannot beat a sailor ashore +when that mood is on him--the mood of absolute irresponsibility +tasted to the full. It seems to me that I thought of nothing +whatever, but this is an impression which is hardly to be +believed at this distance of years. What I am certain of is that +I was very far from thinking of writing a story, though it is +possible and even likely that I was thinking of the man Almayer. + +I had seen him for the first time, some four years before, from +the bridge of a steamer moored to a rickety little wharf forty +miles up, more or less, a Bornean river. It was very early +morning, and a slight mist--an opaline mist as in Bessborough +Gardens, only without the fiery flicks on roof and chimney-pot +from the rays of the red London sun--promised to turn presently +into a woolly fog. Barring a small dug-out canoe on the river +there was nothing moving within sight. I had just come up +yawning from my cabin. The serang and the Malay crew were +overhauling the cargo chains and trying the winches; their voices +sounded subdued on the deck below, and their movements were +languid. That tropical daybreak was chilly. The Malay +quartermaster, coming up to get something from the lockers on the +bridge, shivered visibly. The forests above and below and on the +opposite bank looked black and dank; wet dripped from the rigging +upon the tightly stretched deck awnings, and it was in the middle +of a shuddering yawn that I caught sight of Almayer. He was +moving across a patch of burned grass, a blurred, shadowy shape +with the blurred bulk of a house behind him, a low house of mats, +bamboos, and palm leaves, with a high-pitched roof of grass. + +He stepped upon the jetty. He was clad simply in flapping +pajamas of cretonne pattern (enormous flowers with yellow petals +on a disagreeable blue ground) and a thin cotton singlet with +short sleeves. His arms, bare to the elbow, were crossed on his +chest. His black hair looked as if it had not been cut for a +very long time, and a curly wisp of it strayed across his +forehead. I had heard of him at Singapore; I had heard of him on +board; I had heard of him early in the morning and late at night; +I had heard of him at tiffin and at dinner; I had heard of him in +a place called Pulo Laut from a half-caste gentleman there, who +described himself as the manager of a coal-mine; which sounded +civilized and progressive till you heard that the mine could not +be worked at present because it was haunted by some particularly +atrocious ghosts. I had heard of him in a place called Dongola, +in the Island of Celebes, when the Rajah of that little-known +seaport (you can get no anchorage there in less than fifteen +fathom, which is extremely inconvenient) came on board in a +friendly way, with only two attendants, and drank bottle after +bottle of soda-water on the after-sky light with my good friend +and commander, Captain C----. At least I heard his name +distinctly pronounced several times in a lot of talk in Malay +language. Oh, yes, I heard it quite distinctly--Almayer, +Almayer--and saw Captain C---- smile, while the fat, dingy Rajah +laughed audibly. To hear a Malay Rajah laugh outright is a rare +experience, I can as sure you. And I overheard more of Almayer's +name among our deck passengers (mostly wandering traders of good +repute) as they sat all over the ship--each man fenced round with +bundles and boxes--on mats, on pillows, on quilts, on billets of +wood, conversing of Island affairs. Upon my word, I heard the +mutter of Almayer's name faintly at midnight, while making my way +aft from the bridge to look at the patent taffrail-log tinkling +its quarter miles in the great silence of the sea. I don't mean +to say that our passengers dreamed aloud of Almayer, but it is +indubitable that two of them at least, who could not sleep, +apparently, and were trying to charm away the trouble of insomnia +by a little whispered talk at that ghostly hour, were referring +in some way or other to Almayer. It was really impossible on +board that ship to get away definitely from Almayer; and a very +small pony tied up forward and whisking its tail inside the +galley, to the great embarrassment of our Chinaman cook, was +destined for Almayer. What he wanted with a pony goodness only +knows, since I am perfectly certain he could not ride it; but +here you have the man, ambitious, aiming at the grandiose, +importing a pony, whereas in the whole settlement at which he +used to shake daily his impotent fist there was only one path +that was practicable for a pony: a quarter of a mile at most, +hedged in by hundreds of square leagues of virgin forest. But +who knows? The importation of that Bali pony might have been +part of some deep scheme, of some diplomatic plan, of some +hopeful intrigue. With Almayer one could never tell. He +governed his conduct by considerations removed from the obvious, +by incredible assumptions, which rendered his logic impenetrable +to any reasonable person. I learned all this later. That +morning, seeing the figure in pajamas moving in the mist, I said +to myself, "That's the man." + +He came quite close to the ship's side and raised a harassed +countenance, round and flat, with that curl of black hair over +the forehead and a heavy, pained glance. + +"Good morning." + +"Good morning." + +He looked hard at me: I was a new face, having just replaced the +chief mate he was accustomed to see; and I think that this +novelty inspired him, as things generally did, with deep-seated +mistrust. + +"Didn't expect you till this evening," he remarked, suspiciously. + +I didn't know why he should have been aggrieved, but he seemed to +be. I took pains to explain to him that, having picked up the +beacon at the mouth of the river just before dark and the tide +serving, Captain C---- was enabled to cross the bar and there was +nothing to prevent him going up the river at night. + +"Captain C---- knows this river like his own pocket," I +concluded, discursively, trying to get on terms. + +"Better," said Almayer. + +Leaning over the rail of the bridge, I looked at Almayer, who +looked down at the wharf in aggrieved thought. He shuffled his +feet a little; he wore straw slippers with thick soles. The +morning fog had thickened considerably. Everything round us +dripped--the derricks, the rails, every single rope in the +ship--as if a fit of crying had come upon the universe. + +Almayer again raised his head and, in the accents of a man +accustomed to the buffets of evil fortune, asked, hardly audibly: + +"I suppose you haven't got such a thing as a pony on board?" + +I told him, almost in a whisper, for he attuned my communications +to his minor key, that we had such a thing as a pony, and I +hinted, as gently as I could, that he was confoundedly in the +way, too. I was very anxious to have him landed before I began +to handle the cargo. Almayer remained looking up at me for a +long while, with incredulous and melancholy eyes, as though it +were not a safe thing to believe in my statement. This pathetic +mistrust in the favourable issue of any sort of affair touched me +deeply, and I added: + +"He doesn't seem a bit the worse for the passage. He's a nice +pony, too." + +Almayer was not to be cheered up; for all answer he cleared his +throat and looked down again at his feet. I tried to close with +him on another tack. + +"By Jove!" I said. "Aren't you afraid of catching pneumonia or +bronchitis or some thing, walking about in a singlet in such a +wet fog?" + +He was not to be propitiated by a show of interest in his health. + +His answer was a sinister "No fear," as much as to say that even +that way of escape from inclement fortune was closed to him. + +"I just came down . . ." he mumbled after a while. + +"Well, then, now you're here I will land that pony for you at +once, and you can lead him home. I really don't want him on +deck. He's in the way." + +Almayer seemed doubtful. I insisted: + +"Why, I will just swing him out and land him on the wharf right +in front of you. I'd much rather do it before the hatches are +off. The little devil may jump down the hold or do some other +deadly thing." + +"There's a halter?" postulated Almayer. + +"Yes, of course there's a halter." And without waiting any more +I leaned over the bridge rail. + +"Serang, land Tuan Almayer's pony." + +The cook hastened to shut the door of the galley, and a moment +later a great scuffle began on deck. The pony kicked with +extreme energy, the kalashes skipped out of the way, the serang +issued many orders in a cracked voice. Suddenly the pony leaped +upon the fore-hatch. His little hoofs thundered tremendously; he +plunged and reared. He had tossed his mane and his forelock into +a state of amazing wildness, he dilated his nostrils, bits of +foam flecked his broad little chest, his eyes blazed. He was +something under eleven hands; he was fierce, terrible, angry, +warlike; he said ha! ha! distinctly; he raged and thumped--and +sixteen able-bodied kalashes stood round him like disconcerted +nurses round a spoiled and passionate child. He whisked his tail +incessantly; he arched his pretty neck; he was perfectly +delightful; he was charmingly naughty. There was not an atom of +vice in that performance; no savage baring of teeth and laying +back of ears. On the contrary, he pricked them forward in a +comically aggressive manner. He was totally unmoral and lovable; +I would have liked to give him bread, sugar, carrots. But life +is a stern thing and the sense of duty the only safe guide. So I +steeled my heart, and from my elevated position on the bridge I +ordered the men to fling themselves upon him in a body. + +The elderly serang, emitting a strange, inarticulate cry, gave +the example. He was an excellent petty officer--very competent, +indeed, and a moderate opium-smoker. The rest of them in one +great rush smothered that pony. They hung on to his ears, to his +mane, to his tail; they lay in piles across his back, seventeen +in all. The carpenter, seizing the hook of the cargo-chain, +flung himself on the top of them. A very satisfactory petty +officer, too, but he stuttered. Have you ever heard a +light-yellow, lean, sad, earnest Chinaman stutter in +Pidgin-English? It's very weird, indeed. He made the +eighteenth. I could not see the pony at all; but from the +swaying and heaving of that heap of men I knew that there was +something alive inside. + +From the wharf Almayer hailed, in quavering tones: + +"Oh, I say!" + +Where he stood he could not see what was going on on deck, +unless, perhaps, the tops of the men's heads; he could only hear +the scuffle, the mighty thuds, as if the ship were being knocked +to pieces. I looked over: "What is it?" + +"Don't let them break his legs," he entreated me, plaintively. + +"Oh, nonsense! He's all right now. He can't move." + +By that time the cargo-chain had been hooked to the broad canvas +belt round the pony's body; the kalashes sprang off +simultaneously in all directions, rolling over each other; and +the worthy serang, making a dash behind the winch, turned the +steam on. + +"Steady!" I yelled, in great apprehension of seeing the animal +snatched up to the very head of the derrick. + +On the wharf Almayer shuffled his straw slippers uneasily. The +rattle of the winch stopped, and in a tense, impressive silence +that pony began to swing across the deck. + +How limp he was! Directly he felt himself in the air he relaxed +every muscle in a most wonderful manner. His four hoofs knocked +together in a bunch, his head hung down, and his tail remained +pendent in a nerveless and absolute immobility. He reminded me +vividly of the pathetic little sheep which hangs on the collar of +the Order of the Golden Fleece. I had no idea that anything in +the shape of a horse could be so limp as that, either living or +dead. His wild mane hung down lumpily, a mere mass of inanimate +horsehair; his aggressive ears had collapsed, but as he went +swaying slowly across the front of the bridge I noticed an astute +gleam in his dreamy, half-closed eye. A trustworthy +quartermaster, his glance anxious and his mouth on the broad +grin, was easing over the derrick watchfully. I superintended, +greatly interested. + +"So! That will do." + +The derrick-head stopped. The kalashes lined the rail. The rope +of the halter hung perpendicular and motionless like a bell-pull +in front of Almayer. Everything was very still. I suggested +amicably that he should catch hold of the rope and mind what he +was about. He extended a provokingly casual and superior hand. + +"Look out, then! Lower away!" + +Almayer gathered in the rope intelligently enough, but when the +pony's hoofs touched the wharf he gave way all at once to a most +foolish optimism. Without pausing, without thinking, almost +without looking, he disengaged the hook suddenly from the sling, +and the cargo-chain, after hitting the pony's quarters, swung +back against the ship's side with a noisy, rattling slap. I +suppose I must have blinked. I know I missed something, because +the next thing I saw was Almayer lying flat on his back on the +jetty. He was alone. + +Astonishment deprived me of speech long enough to give Almayer +time to pick himself up in a leisurely and painful manner. The +kalashes lining the rail all had their mouths open. The mist +flew in the light breeze, and it had come over quite thick enough +to hide the shore completely. + +"How on earth did you manage to let him get away?" I asked, +scandalized. + +Almayer looked into the smarting palm of his right hand, but did +not answer my inquiry. + +"Where do you think he will get to?" I cried. "Are there any +fences anywhere in this fog? Can he bolt into the forest? +What's to be done now?" + +Almayer shrugged his shoulders. + +"Some of my men are sure to be about. They will get hold of him +sooner or later." + +"Sooner or later! That's all very fine, but what about my canvas +sling?--he's carried it off. I want it now, at once, to land two +Celebes cows." + +Since Dongola we had on board a pair of the pretty little island +cattle in addition to the pony. Tied up on the other side of the +fore-deck they had been whisking their tails into the other door +of the galley. These cows were not for Almayer, however; they +were invoiced to Abdullah bin Selim, his enemy. Almayer's +disregard of my requirements was complete. + +"If I were you I would try to find out where he's gone," I +insisted. "Hadn't you better call your men together or +something? He will throw himself down and cut his knees. He may +even break a leg, you know." + +But Almayer, plunged in abstracted thought, did not seem to want +that pony any more. Amazed at this sudden indifference, I turned +all hands out on shore to hunt for him on my own account, or, at +any rate, to hunt for the canvas sling which he had round his +body. The whole crew of the steamer, with the exception of +firemen and engineers, rushed up the jetty, past the thoughtful +Almayer, and vanished from my sight. The white fog swallowed +them up; and again there was a deep silence that seemed to extend +for miles up and down the stream. Still taciturn, Almayer +started to climb on board, and I went down from the bridge to +meet him on the after-deck. + +"Would you mind telling the captain that I want to see him very +particularly?" he asked me, in a low tone, letting his eyes stray +all over the place. + +"Very well. I will go and see." + +With the door of his cabin wide open, Captain C----, just back +from the bath-room, big and broad-chested, was brushing his +thick, damp, iron-gray hair with two large brushes. + +"Mr. Almayer told me he wanted to see you very particularly, +sir." + +Saying these words, I smiled. I don't know why I smiled, except +that it seemed absolutely impossible to mention Almayer's name +without a smile of a sort. It had not to be necessarily a +mirthful smile. Turning his head toward me, Captain C---- +smiled, too, rather joylessly. + +"The pony got away from him--eh?" + +"Yes, sir. He did." + +"Where is he?" + +"Goodness only knows." + +"No. I mean Almayer. Let him come along." + +The captain's stateroom opening straight on deck under the +bridge, I had only to beckon from the doorway to Almayer, who had +remained aft, with downcast eyes, on the very spot where I had +left him. He strolled up moodily, shook hands, and at once asked +permission to shut the cabin door. + +"I have a pretty story to tell you," were the last words I heard. + +The bitterness of tone was remarkable. + +I went away from the door, of course. For the moment I had no +crew on board; only the Chinaman carpenter, with a canvas bag +hung round his neck and a hammer in his hand, roamed about the +empty decks, knocking out the wedges of the hatches and dropping +them into the bag conscientiously. Having nothing to do I joined +our two engineers at the door of the engine-room. It was near +breakfast-time. + +"He's turned up early, hasn't he?" commented the second engineer, +and smiled indifferently. He was an abstemious man, with a good +digestion and a placid, reasonable view of life even when hungry. + +"Yes," I said. "Shut up with the old man. Some very particular +business." + +"He will spin him a damned endless yarn," observed the chief +engineer. + +He smiled rather sourly. He was dyspeptic, and suffered from +gnawing hunger in the morning. The second smiled broadly, a +smile that made two vertical folds on his shaven cheeks. And I +smiled, too, but I was not exactly amused. In that man, whose +name apparently could not be uttered anywhere in the Malay +Archipelago without a smile, there was nothing amusing whatever. +That morning he breakfasted with us silently, looking mostly into +his cup. I informed him that my men came upon his pony capering +in the fog on the very brink of the eight-foot-deep well in which +he kept his store of guttah. The cover was off, with no one near +by, and the whole of my crew just missed going heels over head +into that beastly hole. Jurumudi Itam, our best quartermaster, +deft at fine needlework, he who mended the ship's flags and sewed +buttons on our coats, was disabled by a kick on the shoulder. + +Both remorse and gratitude seemed foreign to Almayer's character. + +He mumbled: + +"Do you mean that pirate fellow?" + +"What pirate fellow? The man has been in the ship eleven years," +I said, indignantly. + +"It's his looks," Almayer muttered, for all apology. + +The sun had eaten up the fog. From where we sat under the +after-awning we could see in the distance the pony tied up, in +front of Almayer's house, to a post of the veranda. We were +silent for a long time. All at once Almayer, alluding evidently +to the subject of his conversation in the captain's cabin, +exclaimed anxiously across the table: + +"I really don't know what I can do now!" + +Captain C---- only raised his eyebrows at him, and got up from +his chair. We dispersed to our duties, but Almayer, half dressed +as he was in his cretonne pajamas and the thin cotton singlet, +remained on board, lingering near the gangway, as though he could +not make up his mind whether to go home or stay with us for good. + +Our Chinamen boys gave him side glances as they went to and fro; +and Ah Sing, our chief steward, the handsomest and most +sympathetic of Chinamen, catching my eye, nodded knowingly at his +burly back. In the course of the morning I approached him for a +moment. + +"Well, Mr. Almayer," I addressed him, easily, "you haven't +started on your letters yet." + +We had brought him his mail, and he had held the bundle in his +hand ever since we got up from breakfast. He glanced at it when +I spoke, and for a moment it looked as if he were on the point of +opening his fingers and letting the whole lot fall overboard. I +believe he was tempted to do so. I shall never forget that man +afraid of his letters. + +"Have you been long out from Europe?" he asked me. + +"Not very. Not quite eight months," I told him. "I left a ship +in Samarang with a hurt back, and have been in the hospital in +Singapore some weeks." + +He sighed. + +"Trade is very bad here." + +"Indeed!" + +"Hopeless! . . . See these geese?" + +With the hand holding the letters he pointed out to me what +resembled a patch of snow creeping and swaying across the distant +part of his compound. It disappeared behind some bushes. + +"The only geese on the East Coast," Almayer informed me, in a +perfunctory mutter without a spark of faith, hope, or pride. +Thereupon, with the same absence of any sort of sustaining +spirit, he declared his intention to select a fat bird and send +him on board for us not later than next day. + +I had heard of these largesses before. He conferred a goose as +if it were a sort of court decoration given only to the tried +friends of the house. I had expected more pomp in the ceremony. +The gift had surely its special quality, multiple and rare. From +the only flock on the East Coast! He did not make half enough of +it. That man did not understand his opportunities. However, I +thanked him at some length. + +"You see," he interrupted, abruptly, in a very peculiar tone, +"the worst of this country is that one is not able to realize . . +. it's impossible to realize. . . ." His voice sank into a +languid mutter. "And when one has very large interests . . . +very important interests . . ." he finished, faintly . . . "up +the river." + +We looked at each other. He astonished me by giving a start and +making a very queer grimace. + +"Well, I must be off," he burst out, hurriedly. "So long!" + +At the moment of stepping over the gang way he checked himself, +though, to give me a mumbled invitation to dine at his house that +evening with my captain, an invitation which I accepted. I don't +think it could have been possible for me to refuse. + +I like the worthy folk who will talk to you of the exercise of +free-will, "at any rate for practical purposes." Free, is it? +For practical purposes! Bosh! How could I have refused to dine +with that man? I did not refuse, simply because I could not +refuse. Curiosity, a healthy desire for a change of cooking, +common civility, the talk and the smiles of the previous twenty +days, every condition of my existence at that moment and place +made irresistibly for acceptance; and, crowning all that, there +was the ignorance--the ignorance, I say--the fatal want of fore +knowledge to counterbalance these imperative conditions of the +problem. A refusal would have appeared perverse and insane. +Nobody, unless a surly lunatic, would have refused. But if I had +not got to know Almayer pretty well it is almost certain there +would never have been a line of mine in print. + +I accepted then--and I am paying yet the price of my sanity. The +possessor of the only flock of geese on the East Coast is +responsible for the existence of some fourteen volumes, so far. +The number of geese he had called into being under adverse +climatic conditions was considerably more than fourteen. The +tale of volumes will never overtake the counting of heads, I am +safe to say; but my ambitions point not exactly that way, and +whatever the pangs the toil of writing has cost me I have always +thought kindly of Almayer. + +I wonder, had he known anything of it, what his attitude would +have been? This is something not to be discovered in this world. + +But if we ever meet in the Elysian Fields--where I cannot depict +him to myself otherwise than attended in the distance by his +flock of geese (birds sacred to Jupiter)--and he addresses me in +the stillness of that passionless region, neither light nor +darkness, neither sound nor silence, and heaving endlessly with +billowy mists from the impalpable multitudes of the swarming +dead, I think I know what answer to make. + +I would say, after listening courteously to the unvibrating tone +of his measured remonstrances, which should not disturb, of +course, the solemn eternity of stillness in the least--I would +say something like this: + +"It is true, Almayer, that in the world below I have converted +your name to my own uses. But that is a very small larceny. +What's in a name, O Shade? If so much of your old mortal +weakness clings to you yet as to make you feel aggrieved (it was +the note of your earthly voice, Almayer), then, I entreat you, +seek speech without delay with our sublime fellow-Shade--with him +who, in his transient existence as a poet, commented upon the +smell of the rose. He will comfort you. You came to me stripped +of all prestige by men's queer smiles and the disrespectful +chatter of every vagrant trader in the Islands. Your name was +the common property of the winds; it, as it were, floated naked +over the waters about the equator. I wrapped round its +unhonoured form the royal mantle of the tropics, and have essayed +to put into the hollow sound the very anguish of paternity--feats +which you did not demand from me--but remember that all the toil +and all the pain were mine. In your earthly life you haunted me, +Almayer. Consider that this was taking a great liberty. Since +you were always complaining of being lost to the world, you +should remember that if I had not believed enough in your +existence to let you haunt my rooms in Bessborough Gardens, you +would have been much more lost. You affirm that had I been +capable of looking at you with a more perfect detachment and a +greater simplicity, I might have perceived better the inward +marvellousness which, you insist, attended your career upon that +tiny pin-point of light, hardly visible far, far below us, where +both our graves lie. No doubt! But reflect, O complaining +Shade! that this was not so much my fault as your crowning +misfortune. I believed in you in the only way it was possible +for me to believe. It was not worthy of your merits? So be it. +But you were always an unlucky man, Almayer. Nothing was ever +quite worthy of you. What made you so real to me was that you +held this lofty theory with some force of conviction and with an +admirable consistency." + +It is with some such words translated into the proper shadowy +expressions that I am prepared to placate Almayer in the Elysian +Abode of Shades, since it has come to pass that, having parted +many years ago, we are never to meet again in this world. + + +V + +In the career of the most unliterary of writers, in the sense +that literary ambition had never entered the world of his +imagination, the coming into existence of the first book is quite +an inexplicable event. In my own case I cannot trace it back to +any mental or psychological cause which one could point out and +hold to. The greatest of my gifts being a consummate capacity +for doing nothing, I cannot even point to boredom as a rational +stimulus for taking up a pen. The pen, at any rate, was there, +and there is nothing wonderful in that. Everybody keeps a pen +(the cold steel of our days) in his rooms, in this enlightened +age of penny stamps and halfpenny post-cards. In fact, this was +the epoch when by means of postcard and pen Mr. Gladstone had +made the reputation of a novel or two. And I, too, had a pen +rolling about somewhere--the seldom-used, the reluctantly +taken-up pen of a sailor ashore, the pen rugged with the dried +ink of abandoned attempts, of answers delayed longer than decency +permitted, of letters begun with infinite reluctance, and put off +suddenly till next day--till next week, as like as not! The +neglected, uncared-for pen, flung away at the slightest +provocation, and under the stress of dire necessity hunted for +without enthusiasm, in a perfunctory, grumpy worry, in the "Where +the devil IS the beastly thing gone to?" ungracious spirit. +Where, indeed! It might have been reposing behind the sofa for a +day or so. My landlady's anemic daughter (as Ollendorff would +have expressed it), though commendably neat, had a lordly, +careless manner of approaching her domestic duties. Or it might +even be resting delicately poised on its point by the side of the +table-leg, and when picked up show a gaping, inefficient beak +which would have discouraged any man of literary instincts. But +not me! "Never mind. This will do." + +O days without guile! If anybody had told me then that a devoted +household, having a generally exaggerated idea of my talents and +importance, would be put into a state of tremor and flurry by the +fuss I would make because of a suspicion that somebody had +touched my sacrosanct pen of authorship, I would have never +deigned as much as the contemptuous smile of unbelief. There are +imaginings too unlikely for any kind of notice, too wild for +indulgence itself, too absurd for a smile. Perhaps, had that +seer of the future been a friend, I should have been secretly +saddened. "Alas!" I would have thought, looking at him with an +unmoved face, "the poor fellow is going mad." + +I would have been, without doubt, saddened; for in this world +where the journalists read the signs of the sky, and the wind of +heaven itself, blowing where it listeth, does so under the +prophetical management of the meteorological office, but where +the secret of human hearts cannot be captured by prying or +praying, it was infinitely more likely that the sanest of my +friends should nurse the germ of incipient madness than that I +should turn into a writer of tales. + +To survey with wonder the changes of one's own self is a +fascinating pursuit for idle hours. The field is so wide, the +surprises so varied, the subject so full of unprofitable but +curious hints as to the work of unseen forces, that one does not +weary easily of it. I am not speaking here of megalomaniacs who +rest uneasy under the crown of their unbounded conceit--who +really never rest in this world, and when out of it go on +fretting and fuming on the straitened circumstances of their last +habitation, where all men must lie in obscure equality. Neither +am I thinking of those ambitious minds who, always looking +forward to some aim of aggrandizement, can spare no time for a +detached, impersonal glance upon them selves. + +And that's a pity. They are unlucky. These two kinds, together +with the much larger band of the totally unimaginative, of those +unfortunate beings in whose empty and unseeing gaze (as a great +French writer has put it) "the whole universe vanishes into blank +nothingness," miss, perhaps, the true task of us men whose day is +short on this earth, the abode of conflicting opinions. The +ethical view of the universe involves us at last in so many cruel +and absurd contradictions, where the last vestiges of faith, +hope, charity, and even of reason itself, seem ready to perish, +that I have come to suspect that the aim of creation cannot be +ethical at all. I would fondly believe that its object is purely +spectacular: a spectacle for awe, love, adoration, or hate, if +you like, but in this view--and in this view alone--never for +despair! Those visions, delicious or poignant, are a moral end +in themselves. The rest is our affair--the laughter, the tears, +the tenderness, the indignation, the high tranquillity of a +steeled heart, the detached curiosity of a subtle mind--that's +our affair! And the unwearied self-forgetful attention to every +phase of the living universe reflected in our consciousness may +be our appointed task on this earth--a task in which fate has +perhaps engaged nothing of us except our conscience, gifted with +a voice in order to bear true testimony to the visible wonder, +the haunting terror, the infinite passion, and the illimitable +serenity; to the supreme law and the abiding mystery of the +sublime spectacle. + +Chi lo sa? It may be true. In this view there is room for every +religion except for the inverted creed of impiety, the mask and +cloak of arid despair; for every joy and every sorrow, for every +fair dream, for every charitable hope. The great aim is to +remain true to the emotions called out of the deep encircled by +the firmament of stars, whose infinite numbers and awful +distances may move us to laughter or tears (was it the Walrus or +the Carpenter, in the poem, who "wept to see such quantities of +sand"?), or, again, to a properly steeled heart, may matter +nothing at all. + +The casual quotation, which had suggested itself out of a poem +full of merit, leads me to remark that in the conception of a +purely spectacular universe, where inspiration of every sort has +a rational existence, the artist of every kind finds a natural +place; and among them the poet as the seer par excellence. Even +the writer of prose, who in his less noble and more toilsome task +should be a man with the steeled heart, is worthy of a place, +providing he looks on with undimmed eyes and keeps laughter out +of his voice, let who will laugh or cry. Yes! Even he, the +prose artist of fiction, which after all is but truth often +dragged out of a well and clothed in the painted robe of imagined +phrases--even he has his place among kings, demagogues, priests, +charlatans, dukes, giraffes, cabinet ministers, Fabians, +bricklayers, apostles, ants, scientists, Kafirs, soldiers, +sailors, elephants, lawyers, dandies, microbes, and +constellations of a universe whose amazing spectacle is a moral +end in itself. + +Here I perceive (without speaking offense) the reader assuming a +subtle expression, as if the cat were out of the bag. I take the +novelist's freedom to observe the reader's mind formulating the +exclamation: "That's it! The fellow talks pro domo." + +Indeed it was not the intention! When I shouldered the bag I was +not aware of the cat inside. But, after all, why not? The fair +courtyards of the House of Art are thronged by many humble +retainers. And there is no retainer so devoted as he who is +allowed to sit on the doorstep. The fellows who have got inside +are apt to think too much of themselves. This last remark, I beg +to state, is not malicious within the definition of the law of +libel. It's fair comment on a matter of public interest. But +never mind. Pro domo. So be it. For his house tant que vous +voudrez. And yet in truth I was by no means anxious to justify +my existence. The attempt would have been not only needless and +absurd, but almost inconceivable, in a purely spectacular +universe, where no such disagreeable necessity can possibly +arise. It is sufficient for me to say (and I am saying it at +some length in these pages): J'ai vecu. I have existed, obscure +among the wonders and terrors of my time, as the Abbe Sieyes, the +original utterer of the quoted words, had managed to exist +through the violences, the crimes, and the enthusiasms of the +French Revolution. J'ai vecu, as I apprehend most of us manage +to exist, missing all along the varied forms of destruction by a +hair's-breadth, saving my body, that's clear, and perhaps my soul +also, but not without some damage here and there to the fine edge +of my conscience, that heirloom of the ages, of the race, of the +group, of the family, colourable and plastic, fashioned by the +words, the looks, the acts, and even by the silences and +abstentions surrounding one's childhood; tinged in a complete +scheme of delicate shades and crude colours by the inherited +traditions, beliefs, or prejudices--unaccountable, despotic, +persuasive, and often, in its texture, romantic. + +And often romantic! . . . The matter in hand, however, is to +keep these reminiscences from turning into confessions, a form of +literary activity discredited by Jean Jacques Rousseau on account +of the extreme thoroughness he brought to the work of justifying +his own existence; for that such was his purpose is palpably, +even grossly, visible to an unprejudiced eye. But then, you see, +the man was not a writer of fiction. He was an artless moralist, +as is clearly demonstrated by his anniversaries being celebrated +with marked emphasis by the heirs of the French Revolution, which +was not a political movement at all, but a great outburst of +morality. He had no imagination, as the most casual perusal of +"Emile" will prove. He was no novelist, whose first virtue is +the exact understanding of the limits traced by the reality of +his time to the play of his invention. Inspiration comes from +the earth, which has a past, a history, a future, not from the +cold and immutable heaven. A writer of imaginative prose (even +more than any other sort of artist) stands confessed in his +works. His conscience, his deeper sense of things, lawful and +unlawful, gives him his attitude before the world. Indeed, +everyone who puts pen to paper for the reading of strangers +(unless a moralist, who, generally speaking, has no conscience +except the one he is at pains to produce for the use of others) +can speak of nothing else. It is M. Anatole France, the most +eloquent and just of French prose-writers, who says that we must +recognize at last that, "failing the resolution to hold our +peace, we can only talk of ourselves." + +This remark, if I remember rightly, was made in the course of a +sparring match with the late Ferdinand Brunetiere over the +principles and rules of literary criticism. As was fitting for a +man to whom we owe the memorable saying, "The good critic is he +who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces," M. +Anatole France maintained that there were no rules and no +principles. And that may be very true. Rules, principles, and +standards die and vanish every day. Perhaps they are all dead +and vanished by this time. These, if ever, are the brave, free +days of destroyed landmarks, while the ingenious minds are busy +inventing the forms of the new beacons which, it is consoling to +think, will be set up presently in the old places. But what is +interesting to a writer is the possession of an inward certitude +that literary criticism will never die, for man (so variously +defined) is, before everything else, a critical animal. And as +long as distinguished minds are ready to treat it in the spirit +of high adventure literary criticism shall appeal to us with all +the charm and wisdom of a well-told tale of personal experience. + +For Englishmen especially, of all the races of the earth, a task, +any task, undertaken in an adventurous spirit acquires the merit +of romance. But the critics as a rule exhibit but little of an +adventurous spirit. They take risks, of course--one can hardly +live with out that. The daily bread is served out to us (however +sparingly) with a pinch of salt. Otherwise one would get sick of +the diet one prays for, and that would be not only improper, but +impious. From impiety of that or any other kind--save us! An +ideal of reserved manner, adhered to from a sense of proprieties, +from shyness, perhaps, or caution, or simply from weariness, +induces, I suspect, some writers of criticism to conceal the +adventurous side of their calling, and then the criticism becomes +a mere "notice," as it were, the relation of a journey where +nothing but the distances and the geology of a new country should +be set down; the glimpses of strange beasts, the dangers of flood +and field, the hairbreadth escapes, and the sufferings (oh, the +sufferings, too! I have no doubt of the sufferings) of the +traveller being carefully kept out; no shady spot, no fruitful +plant being ever mentioned either; so that the whole performance +looks like a mere feat of agility on the part of a trained pen +running in a desert. A cruel spectacle--a most deplorable +adventure! "Life," in the words of an immortal thinker of, I +should say, bucolic origin, but whose perishable name is lost to +the worship of posterity--"life is not all beer and skittles." +Neither is the writing of novels. It isn't, really. Je vous +donne ma parole d'honneur that it--is--not. Not ALL. I am thus +emphatic because some years ago, I remember, the daughter of a +general. . . . + +Sudden revelations of the profane world must have come now and +then to hermits in their cells, to the cloistered monks of middle +ages, to lonely sages, men of science, reformers; the revelations +of the world's superficial judgment, shocking to the souls +concentrated upon their own bitter labour in the cause of +sanctity, or of knowledge, or of temperance, let us say, or of +art, if only the art of cracking jokes or playing the flute. And +thus this general's daughter came to me--or I should say one of +the general's daughters did. There were three of these bachelor +ladies, of nicely graduated ages, who held a neighbouring +farm-house in a united and more or less military occupation. The +eldest warred against the decay of manners in the village +children, and executed frontal attacks upon the village mothers +for the conquest of courtesies. It sounds futile, but it was +really a war for an idea. The second skirmished and scouted all +over the country; and it was that one who pushed a reconnaissance +right to my very table--I mean the one who wore stand-up collars. + +She was really calling upon my wife in the soft spirit of +afternoon friendliness, but with her usual martial determination. +She marched into my room swinging her stick . . . but no--I +mustn't exaggerate. It is not my specialty. I am not a +humoristic writer. In all soberness, then, all I am certain of +is that she had a stick to swing. + +No ditch or wall encompassed my abode. The window was open; the +door, too, stood open to that best friend of my work, the warm, +still sunshine of the wide fields. They lay around me infinitely +helpful, but, truth to say, I had not known for weeks whether the +sun shone upon the earth and whether the stars above still moved +on their appointed courses. I was just then giving up some days +of my allotted span to the last chapters of the novel "Nostromo," +a tale of an imaginary (but true) seaboard, which is still +mentioned now and again, and indeed kindly, sometimes in +connection with the word "failure" and sometimes in conjunction +with the word "astonishing." I have no opinion on this +discrepancy. It's the sort of difference that can never be +settled. All I know is that, for twenty months, neglecting the +common joys of life that fall to the lot of the humblest on this +earth, I had, like the prophet of old, "wrestled with the Lord" +for my creation, for the headlands of the coast, for the darkness +of the Placid Gulf, the light on the snows, the clouds in the +sky, and for the breath of life that had to be blown into the +shapes of men and women, of Latin and Saxon, of Jew and Gentile. +These are, perhaps, strong words, but it is difficult to +characterize other wise the intimacy and the strain of a creative +effort in which mind and will and conscience are engaged to the +full, hour after hour, day after day, away from the world, and to +the exclusion of all that makes life really lovable and +gentle--something for which a material parallel can only be found +in the everlasting sombre stress of the westward winter passage +round Cape Horn. For that, too, is the wrestling of men with the +might of their Creator, in a great isolation from the world, +without the amenities and consolations of life, a lonely struggle +under a sense of overmatched littleness, for no reward that could +be adequate, but for the mere winning of a longitude. Yet a +certain longitude, once won, cannot be disputed. The sun and the +stars and the shape of your earth are the witnesses of your gain; +whereas a handful of pages, no matter how much you have made them +your own, are at best but an obscure and questionable spoil. +Here they are. "Failure"--"Astonishing": take your choice; or +perhaps both, or neither--a mere rustle and flutter of pieces of +paper settling down in the night, and undistinguishable, like the +snowflakes of a great drift destined to melt away in sunshine. + +"How do you do?" + +It was the greeting of the general's daughter. I had heard +nothing--no rustle, no footsteps. I had felt only a moment +before a sort of premonition of evil; I had the sense of an +inauspicious presence--just that much warning and no more; and +then came the sound of the voice and the jar as of a terrible +fall from a great height--a fall, let us say, from the highest of +the clouds floating in gentle procession over the fields in the +faint westerly air of that July afternoon. I picked myself up +quickly, of course; in other words, I jumped up from my chair +stunned and dazed, every nerve quivering with the pain of being +uprooted out of one world and flung down into another--perfectly +civil. + +"Oh! How do you do? Won't you sit down?" + +That's what I said. This horrible but, I assure you, perfectly +true reminiscence tells you more than a whole volume of +confessions a la Jean Jacques Rousseau would do. Observe! I +didn't howl at her, or start up setting furniture, or throw +myself on the floor and kick, or allow myself to hint in any +other way at the appalling magnitude of the disaster. The whole +world of Costaguana (the country, you may remember, of my +seaboard tale), men, women, headlands, houses, mountains, town, +campo(there was not a single brick, stone, or grain of sand of +its soil I had not placed in position with my own hands); all the +history, geography, politics, finance; the wealth of Charles +Gould's silver-mine, and the splendour of the magnificent Capataz +de Cargadores, whose name, cried out in the night (Dr. Monygham +heard it pass over his head--in Linda Viola's voice), dominated +even after death the dark gulf containing his conquests of +treasure and love--all that had come down crashing about my ears. + +I felt I could never pick up the pieces--and in that very moment +I was saying, "Won't you sit down?" + +The sea is strong medicine. Behold what the quarter-deck +training even in a merchant ship will do! This episode should +give you a new view of the English and Scots seamen (a +much-caricatured folk) who had the last say in the formation of +my character. One is nothing if not modest, but in this disaster +I think I have done some honour to their simple teaching. "Won't +you sit down?" Very fair; very fair, indeed. She sat down. Her +amused glance strayed all over the room. + +There were pages of MS. on the table and under the table, a batch +of typed copy on a chair, single leaves had fluttered away into +distant corners; there were there living pages, pages scored and +wounded, dead pages that would be burned at the end of the +day--the litter of a cruel battle-field, of a long, long, and +desperate fray. Long! I suppose I went to bed sometimes, and +got up the same number of times. Yes, I suppose I slept, and ate +the food put before me, and talked connectedly to my household on +suitable occasions. But I had never been aware of the even flow +of daily life, made easy and noiseless for me by a silent, +watchful, tireless affection. Indeed, it seemed to me that I had +been sitting at that table surrounded by the litter of a +desperate fray for days and nights on end. It seemed so, because +of the intense weariness of which that interruption had made me +aware--the awful disenchantment of a mind realizing suddenly the +futility of an enormous task, joined to a bodily fatigue such as +no ordinary amount of fairly heavy physical labour could ever +account for. I have carried bags of wheat on my back, bent +almost double under a ship's deck-beams, from six in the morning +till six in the evening (with an hour and a half off for meals), +so I ought to know. + +And I love letters. I am jealous of their honour and concerned +for the dignity and comeliness of their service. I was, most +likely, the only writer that neat lady had ever caught in the +exercise of his craft, and it distressed me not to be able to +remember when it was that I dressed myself last, and how. No +doubt that would be all right in essentials. The fortune of the +house included a pair of gray-blue watchful eyes that would see +to that. But I felt, somehow, as grimy as a Costaguana lepero +after a day's fighting in the streets, rumpled all over and +dishevelled down to my very heels. And I am afraid I blinked +stupidly. All this was bad for the honour of letters and the +dignity of their service. Seen indistinctly through the dust of +my collapsed universe, the good lady glanced about the room with +a slightly amused serenity. And she was smiling. What on earth +was she smiling at? She remarked casually: + +"I am afraid I interrupted you." + +"Not at all." + +She accepted the denial in perfect good faith. And it was +strictly true. Interrupted--indeed! She had robbed me of at +least twenty lives, each infinitely more poignant and real than +her own, because informed with passion, possessed of convictions, +involved in great affairs created out of my own substance for an +anxiously meditated end. + +She remained silent for a while, then said, with a last glance +all round at the litter of the fray: + +"And you sit like this here writing your--your . . ." + +"I--what? Oh, yes! I sit here all day." + +"It must be perfectly delightful." + +I suppose that, being no longer very young, I might have been on +the verge of having a stroke; but she had left her dog in the +porch, and my boy's dog, patrolling the field in front, had +espied him from afar. He came on straight and swift like a +cannon-ball, and the noise of the fight, which burst suddenly +upon our ears, was more than enough to scare away a fit of +apoplexy. We went out hastily and separated the gallant animals. +Afterward I told the lady where she would find my wife--just +round the corner, under the trees. She nodded and went off with +her dog, leaving me appalled before the death and devastation she +had lightly made--and with the awfully instructive sound of the +word "delightful" lingering in my ears. + +Nevertheless, later on, I duly escorted her to the field gate. I +wanted to be civil, of course (what are twenty lives in a mere +novel that one should be rude to a lady on their account?), but +mainly, to adopt the good, sound Ollendorffian style, because I +did not want the dog of the general's daughter to fight again +(encore) with the faithful dog of my infant son (mon petit +garcon).--Was I afraid that the dog of the general's daughter +would be able to overcome (vaincre) the dog of my child?--No, I +was not afraid. . . . But away with the Ollendorff method. How +ever appropriate and seemingly unavoidable when I touch upon +anything appertaining to the lady, it is most unsuitable to the +origin, character, and history of the dog; for the dog was the +gift to the child from a man for whom words had anything but an +Ollendorffian value, a man almost childlike in the impulsive +movements of his untutored genius, the most single-minded of +verbal impressionists, using his great gifts of straight feeling +and right expression with a fine sincerity and a strong if, +perhaps, not fully conscious conviction. His art did not obtain, +I fear, all the credit its unsophisticated inspiration deserved. +I am alluding to the late Stephen Crane, the author of "The Red +Badge of Courage," a work of imagination which found its short +moment of celebrity in the last decade of the departed century. +Other books followed. Not many. He had not the time. It was an +individual and complete talent which obtained but a grudging, +somewhat supercilious recognition from the world at large. For +himself one hesitates to regret his early death. Like one of the +men in his "Open Boat," one felt that he was of those whom fate +seldom allows to make a safe landing after much toil and +bitterness at the oar. I confess to an abiding affection for +that energetic, slight, fragile, intensely living and transient +figure. He liked me, even before we met, on the strength of a +page or two of my writing, and after we had met I am glad to +think he liked me still. He used to point out to me with great +earnestness, and even with some severity, that "a boy OUGHT to +have a dog." I suspect that he was shocked at my neglect of +parental duties. + +Ultimately it was he who provided the dog. Shortly afterward, +one day, after playing with the child on the rug for an hour or +so with the most intense absorption, he raised his head and +declared firmly, "I shall teach your boy to ride." That was not +to be. He was not given the time. + +But here is the dog--an old dog now. Broad and low on his bandy +paws, with a black head on a white body and a ridiculous black +spot at the other end of him, he provokes, when he walks abroad, +smiles not altogether unkind. Grotesque and engaging in the +whole of his appearance, his usual attitudes are meek, but his +temperament discloses itself unexpectedly pugnacious in the +presence of his kind. As he lies in the firelight, his head well +up, and a fixed, far away gaze directed at the shadows of the +room, he achieves a striking nobility of pose in the calm +consciousness of an unstained life. He has brought up one baby, +and now, after seeing his first charge off to school, he is +bringing up another with the same conscientious devotion, but +with a more deliberate gravity of manner, the sign of greater +wisdom and riper experience, but also of rheumatism, I fear. +From the morning bath to the evening ceremonies of the cot, you +attend the little two-legged creature of your adoption, being +yourself treated in the exercise of your duties with every +possible regard, with infinite consideration, by every person in +the house--even as I myself am treated; only you deserve it more. + +The general's daughter would tell you that it must be "perfectly +delightful." + +Aha! old dog. She never heard you yelp with acute pain (it's +that poor left ear) the while, with incredible self-command, you +preserve a rigid immobility for fear of overturning the little +two-legged creature. She has never seen your resigned smile when +the little two-legged creature, interrogated, sternly, "What are +you doing to the good dog?" answers, with a wide, innocent stare: +"Nothing. Only loving him, mamma dear!" + +The general's daughter does not know the secret terms of +self-imposed tasks, good dog, the pain that may lurk in the very +rewards of rigid self-command. But we have lived together many +years. We have grown older, too; and though our work is not +quite done yet we may indulge now and then in a little +introspection before the fire--meditate on the art of bringing up +babies and on the perfect delight of writing tales where so many +lives come and go at the cost of one which slips imperceptibly +away. + + +VI + +In the retrospect of a life which had, besides its preliminary +stage of childhood and early youth, two distinct developments, +and even two distinct elements, such as earth and water, for its +successive scenes, a certain amount of naiveness is unavoidable. +I am conscious of it in these pages. This remark is put forward +in no apologetic spirit. As years go by and the number of pages +grows steadily, the feeling grows upon one, too, that one can +write only for friends. Then why should one put them to the +necessity of protesting (as a friend would do) that no apology is +necessary, or put, perchance, into their heads the doubt of one's +discretion? So much as to the care due to those friends whom a +word here, a line there, a fortunate page of just feeling in the +right place, some happy simplicity, or even some lucky subtlety, +has drawn from the great multitude of fellow beings even as a +fish is drawn from the depths of the sea. Fishing is notoriously +(I am talking now of the deep sea) a matter of luck. As to one's +enemies, they will take care of themselves. + +There is a gentleman, for instance, who, metaphorically speaking, +jumps upon me with both feet. This image has no grace, but it is +exceedingly apt to the occasion--to the several occasions. I +don't know precisely how long he has been indulging in that +intermittent exercise, whose seasons are ruled by the custom of +the publishing trade. Somebody pointed him out (in printed +shape, of course) to my attention some time ago, and straightway +I experienced a sort of reluctant affection for that robust man. +He leaves not a shred of my substance untrodden: for the writer's +substance is his writing; the rest of him is but a vain shadow, +cherished or hated on uncritical grounds. Not a shred! Yet the +sentiment owned to is not a freak of affectation or perversity. +It has a deeper, and, I venture to think, a more estimable origin +than the caprice of emotional lawlessness. It is, indeed, +lawful, in so much that it is given (reluctantly) for a +consideration, for several considerations. There is that +robustness, for instance, so often the sign of good moral +balance. That's a consideration. It is not, indeed, pleasant to +be stamped upon, but the very thoroughness of the operation, +implying not only a careful reading, but some real insight into +work whose qualities and defects, whatever they may be, are not +so much on the surface, is something to be thankful for in view +of the fact that it may happen to one's work to be condemned +without being read at all. This is the most fatuous adventure +that can well happen to a writer venturing his soul among +criticisms. It can do one no harm, of course, but it is +disagreeable. It is disagreeable in the same way as discovering +a three-card-trick man among a decent lot of folk in a +third-class compartment. The open impudence of the whole +transaction, appealing insidiously to the folly and credulity of +man kind, the brazen, shameless patter, proclaiming the fraud +openly while insisting on the fairness of the game, give one a +feeling of sickening disgust. The honest violence of a plain man +playing a fair game fairly--even if he means to knock you +over--may appear shocking, but it remains within the pale of +decency. Damaging as it may be, it is in no sense offensive. +One may well feel some regard for honesty, even if practised upon +one's own vile body. But it is very obvious that an enemy of +that sort will not be stayed by explanations or placated by +apologies. Were I to advance the plea of youth in excuse of the +naiveness to be found in these pages, he would be likely to say +"Bosh!" in a column and a half of fierce print. Yet a writer is +no older than his first published book, and, not withstanding the +vain appearances of decay which attend us in this transitory +life, I stand here with the wreath of only fifteen short summers +on my brow. + +With the remark, then, that at such tender age some naiveness of +feeling and expression is excusable, I proceed to admit that, +upon the whole, my previous state of existence was not a good +equipment for a literary life. Perhaps I should not have used the +word literary. That word presupposes an intimacy of acquaintance +with letters, a turn of mind, and a manner of feeling to which I +dare lay no claim. I only love letters; but the love of letters +does not make a literary man, any more than the love of the sea +makes a seaman. And it is very possible, too, that I love the +letters in the same way a literary man may love the sea he looks +at from the shore--a scene of great endeavour and of great +achievements changing the face of the world, the great open way +to all sorts of undiscovered countries. No, perhaps I had better +say that the life at sea--and I don't mean a mere taste of it, +but a good broad span of years, something that really counts as +real service--is not, upon the whole, a good equipment for a +writing life. God forbid, though, that I should be thought of as +denying my masters of the quarter-deck. I am not capable of that +sort of apostasy. I have confessed my attitude of piety toward +their shades in three or four tales, and if any man on earth more +than another needs to be true to himself as he hopes to be saved, +it is certainly the writer of fiction. + +What I meant to say, simply, is that the quarter-deck training +does not prepare one sufficiently for the reception of literary +criticism. Only that, and no more. But this defect is not +without gravity. If it be permissible to twist, invert, adapt +(and spoil) Mr. Anatole France's definition of a good critic, +then let us say that the good author is he who contemplates +without marked joy or excessive sorrow the adventures of his soul +among criticisms. Far be from me the intention to mislead an +attentive public into the belief that there is no criticism at +sea. That would be dishonest, and even impolite. Ever thing can +be found at sea, according to the spirit of your quest--strife, +peace, romance, naturalism of the most pronounced kind, ideals, +boredom, disgust, inspiration--and every conceivable opportunity, +including the opportunity to make a fool of yourself, exactly as +in the pursuit of literature. But the quarter-deck criticism is +somewhat different from literary criticism. This much they have +in common, that before the one and the other the answering back, +as a general rule, does not pay. + +Yes, you find criticism at sea, and even appreciation--I tell you +everything is to be found on salt water--criticism generally +impromptu, and always viva voce, which is the outward, obvious +difference from the literary operation of that kind, with +consequent freshness and vigour which may be lacking in the +printed word. With appreciation, which comes at the end, when +the critic and the criticised are about to part, it is otherwise. +The sea appreciation of one's humble talents has the permanency +of the written word, seldom the charm of variety, is formal in +its phrasing. There the literary master has the superiority, +though he, too, can in effect but say--and often says it in the +very phrase--"I can highly recommend." Only usually he uses the +word "We," there being some occult virtue in the first person +plural which makes it specially fit for critical and royal +declarations. I have a small handful of these sea appreciations, +signed by various masters, yellowing slowly in my writing-table's +left hand drawer, rustling under my reverent touch, like a +handful of dry leaves plucked for a tender memento from the tree +of knowledge. Strange! It seems that it is for these few bits +of paper, headed by the names of a few Scots and English +shipmasters, that I have faced the astonished indignations, the +mockeries, and the reproaches of a sort hard to bear for a boy of +fifteen; that I have been charged with the want of patriotism, +the want of sense, and the want of heart, too; that I went +through agonies of self-conflict and shed secret tears not a few, +and had the beauties of the Furca Pass spoiled for me, and have +been called an "incorrigible Don Quixote," in allusion to the +book-born madness of the knight. For that spoil! They rustle, +those bits of paper--some dozen of them in all. In that faint, +ghostly sound there live the memories of twenty years, the voices +of rough men now no more, the strong voice of the everlasting +winds, and the whisper of a mysterious spell, the murmur of the +great sea, which must have somehow reached my inland cradle and +entered my unconscious ear, like that formula of Mohammedan faith +the Mussulman father whispers into the ear of his new-born +infant, making him one of the faithful almost with his first +breath. I do not know whether I have been a good seaman, but I +know I have been a very faithful one. And, after all, there is +that handful of "characters" from various ships to prove that all +these years have not been altogether a dream. There they are, +brief, and monotonous in tone, but as suggestive bits of writing +to me as any inspired page to be found in literature. But then, +you see, I have been called romantic. Well, that can't be +helped. But stay. I seem to remember that I have been called a +realist, also. And as that charge, too, can be made out, let us +try to live up to it, at whatever cost, for a change. With this +end in view, I will confide to you coyly, and only because there +is no one about to see my blushes by the light of the midnight +lamp, that these suggestive bits of quarter-deck appreciation, +one and all, contain the words "strictly sober." + +Did I overhear a civil murmur, "That's very gratifying, to be +sure?" Well, yes, it is gratifying--thank you. It is at least +as gratifying to be certified sober as to be certified romantic, +though such certificates would not qualify one for the +secretaryship of a temperance association or for the post of +official troubadour to some lordly democratic institution such as +the London County Council, for instance. The above prosaic +reflection is put down here only in order to prove the general +sobriety of my judgment in mundane affairs. I make a point of it +because a couple of years ago, a certain short story of mine +being published in a French translation, a Parisian critic--I am +almost certain it was M. Gustave Kahn in the "Gil Blas"--giving +me a short notice, summed up his rapid impression of the writer's +quality in the words un puissant reveur. So be it! Who could +cavil at the words of a friendly reader? Yet perhaps not such an +unconditional dreamer as all that. I will make bold to say that +neither at sea nor ashore have I ever lost the sense of +responsibility. There is more than one sort of intoxication. +Even before the most seductive reveries I have remained mindful +of that sobriety of interior life, that asceticism of sentiment, +in which alone the naked form of truth, such as one conceives it, +such as one feels it, can be rendered without shame. It is but a +maudlin and indecent verity that comes out through the strength +of wine. I have tried to be a sober worker all my life--all my +two lives. I did so from taste, no doubt, having an instinctive +horror of losing my sense of full self-possession, but also from +artistic conviction. Yet there are so many pitfalls on each side +of the true path that, having gone some way, and feeling a little +battered and weary, as a middle-aged traveller will from the mere +daily difficulties of the march, I ask myself whether I have kept +always, always faithful to that sobriety where in there is power +and truth and peace. + +As to my sea sobriety, that is quite properly certified under the +sign-manual of several trustworthy shipmasters of some standing +in their time. I seem to hear your polite murmur that "Surely +this might have been taken for granted." Well, no. It might not +have been. That August academical body, the Marine Department of +the Board of Trade, takes nothing for granted in the granting of +its learned degrees. By its regulations issued under the first +Merchant Shipping Act, the very word SOBER must be written, or a +whole sackful, a ton, a mountain of the most enthusiastic +appreciation will avail you nothing. The door of the examination +rooms shall remain closed to your tears and entreaties. The most +fanatical advocate of temperance could not be more pitilessly +fierce in his rectitude than the Marine Department of the Board +of Trade. As I have been face to face at various times with all +the examiners of the Port of London in my generation, there can +be no doubt as to the force and the continuity of my +abstemiousness. Three of them were examiners in seamanship, and +it was my fate to be delivered into the hands of each of them at +proper intervals of sea service. The first of all, tall, spare, +with a perfectly white head and mustache, a quiet, kindly manner, +and an air of benign intelligence, must, I am forced to conclude, +have been unfavourably impressed by something in my appearance. +His old, thin hands loosely clasped resting on his crossed legs, +he began by an elementary question, in a mild voice, and went on, +went on. . . . It lasted for hours, for hours. Had I been a +strange microbe with potentialities of deadly mischief to the +Merchant Service I could not have been submitted to a more +microscopic examination. Greatly reassured by his apparent +benevolence, I had been at first very alert in my answers. But +at length the feeling of my brain getting addled crept upon me. +And still the passionless process went on, with a sense of untold +ages having been spent already on mere preliminaries. Then I got +frightened. I was not frightened of being plucked; that +eventuality did not even present itself to my mind. It was +something much more serious and weird. "This ancient person," I +said to myself, terrified, "is so near his grave that he must +have lost all notion of time. He is considering this examination +in terms of eternity. It is all very well for him. His race is +run. But I may find myself coming out of this room into the +world of men a stranger, friendless, forgotten by my very +landlady, even were I able after this endless experience to +remember the way to my hired home." This statement is not so +much of a verbal exaggeration as may be supposed. Some very +queer thoughts passed through my head while I was considering my +answers; thoughts which had nothing to do with seamanship, nor +yet with anything reasonable known to this earth. I verily +believe that at times I was light-headed in a sort of languid +way. At last there fell a silence, and that, too, seemed to last +for ages, while, bending over his desk, the examiner wrote out my +pass-slip slowly with a noiseless pen. He extended the scrap of +paper to me without a word, inclined his white head gravely to my +parting bow. . . . + +When I got out of the room I felt limply flat, like a squeezed +lemon, and the doorkeeper in his glass cage, where I stopped to +get my hat and tip him a shilling, said: + +"Well! I thought you were never coming out." + +"How long have I been in there?" I asked, faintly. + +He pulled out his watch. + +"He kept you, sir, just under three hours. I don't think this +ever happened with any of the gentlemen before." + +It was only when I got out of the building that I began to walk +on air. And the human animal being averse from change and timid +before the unknown, I said to myself that I really would not mind +being examined by the same man on a future occasion. But when +the time of ordeal came round again the doorkeeper let me into +another room, with the now familiar paraphernalia of models of +ships and tackle, a board for signals on the wall, a big, long +table covered with official forms and having an unrigged mast +fixed to the edge. The solitary tenant was unknown to me by +sight, though not by reputation, which was simply execrable. +Short and sturdy, as far as I could judge, clad in an old brown +morning-suit, he sat leaning on his elbow, his hand shading his +eyes, and half averted from the chair I was to occupy on the +other side of the table. He was motionless, mysterious, remote, +enigmatical, with something mournful, too, in the pose, like that +statue of Giugliano (I think) de Medici shading his face on the +tomb by Michael Angelo, though, of course, he was far, far from +being beautiful. He began by trying to make me talk nonsense. +But I had been warned of that fiendish trait, and contradicted +him with great assurance. After a while he left off. So far +good. But his immobility, the thick elbow on the table, the +abrupt, unhappy voice, the shaded and averted face grew more and +more impressive. He kept inscrutably silent for a moment, and +then, placing me in a ship of a certain size, at sea, under +conditions of weather, season, locality, etc.--all very clear and +precise--ordered me to execute a certain manoeuvre. Before I was +half through with it he did some material damage to the ship. +Directly I had grappled with the difficulty he caused another to +present itself, and when that, too, was met he stuck another ship +before me, creating a very dangerous situation. I felt slightly +outraged by this ingenuity in piling trouble upon a man. + +"I wouldn't have got into that mess," I suggested, mildly. "I +could have seen that ship before." + +He never stirred the least bit. + +"No, you couldn't. The weather's thick." + +"Oh! I didn't know," I apologized blankly. + +I suppose that after all I managed to stave off the smash with +sufficient approach to verisimilitude, and the ghastly business +went on. You must understand that the scheme of the test he was +applying to me was, I gathered, a homeward passage--the sort of +passage I would not wish to my bitterest enemy. That imaginary +ship seemed to labour under a most comprehensive curse. It's no +use enlarging on these never-ending misfortunes; suffice it to +say that long before the end I would have welcomed with gratitude +an opportunity to exchange into the Flying Dutchman. Finally he +shoved me into the North Sea (I suppose) and provided me with a +lee shore with outlying sand-banks--the Dutch coast, presumably. +Distance, eight miles. The evidence of such implacable animosity +deprived me of speech for quite half a minute. + +"Well," he said--for our pace had been very smart, indeed, till +then. + +"I will have to think a little, sir." + +"Doesn't look as if there were much time to think," he muttered, +sardonically, from under his hand. + +"No, sir," I said, with some warmth. "Not on board a ship, I +could see. But so many accidents have happened that I really +can't remember what there's left for me to work with." + +Still half averted, and with his eyes concealed, he made +unexpectedly a grunting remark. + +"You've done very well." + +"Have I the two anchors at the bow, sir?" I asked. + +"Yes." + +I prepared myself then, as a last hope for the ship, to let them +both go in the most effectual manner, when his infernal system of +testing resourcefulness came into play again. + +"But there's only one cable. You've lost the other." + +It was exasperating. + +"Then I would back them, if I could, and tail the heaviest hawser +on board on the end of the chain before letting go, and if she +parted from that, which is quite likely, I would just do nothing. + +She would have to go." + +"Nothing more to do, eh?" + +"No, sir. I could do no more." + +He gave a bitter half-laugh. + +"You could always say your prayers." + +He got up, stretched himself, and yawned slightly. It was a +sallow, strong, unamiable face. He put me, in a surly, bored +fashion, through the usual questions as to lights and signals, +and I escaped from the room thank fully--passed! Forty minutes! +And again I walked on air along Tower Hill, where so many good +men had lost their heads because, I suppose, they were not +resourceful enough to save them. And in my heart of hearts I had +no objection to meeting that examiner once more when the third +and last ordeal became due in another year or so. I even hoped I +should. I knew the worst of him now, and forty minutes is not an +unreasonable time. Yes, I distinctly hoped. . . . + +But not a bit of it. When I presented my self to be examined for +master the examiner who received me was short, plump, with a +round, soft face in gray, fluffy whiskers, and fresh, loquacious +lips. + +He commenced operations with an easy going "Let's see. H'm. +Suppose you tell me all you know of charter-parties." He kept it +up in that style all through, wandering off in the shape of +comment into bits out of his own life, then pulling himself up +short and returning to the business in hand. It was very +interesting. "What's your idea of a jury-rudder now?" he +queried, suddenly, at the end of an instructive anecdote bearing +upon a point of stowage. + +I warned him that I had no experience of a lost rudder at sea, +and gave him two classical examples of makeshifts out of a +text-book. In exchange he described to me a jury-rudder he had +invented himself years before, when in command of a +three-thousand-ton steamer. It was, I declare, the cleverest +contrivance imaginable. "May be of use to you some day," he +concluded. "You will go into steam presently. Everybody goes +into steam." + +There he was wrong. I never went into steam--not really. If I +only live long enough I shall become a bizarre relic of a dead +barbarism, a sort of monstrous antiquity, the only seaman of the +dark ages who had never gone into steam--not really. + +Before the examination was over he imparted to me a few +interesting details of the transport service in the time of the +Crimean War. + +"The use of wire rigging became general about that time, too," he +observed. "I was a very young master then. That was before you +were born." + +"Yes, sir. I am of the year of 1857." + +"The Mutiny year," he commented, as if to himself, adding in a +louder tone that his ship happened then to be in the Gulf of +Bengal, employed under a government charter. + +Clearly the transport service had been the making of this +examiner, who so unexpectedly had given me an insight into his +existence, awakening in me the sense of the continuity of that +sea life into which I had stepped from outside; giving a touch of +human intimacy to the machinery of official relations. I felt +adopted. His experience was for me, too, as though he had been +an ancestor. + +Writing my long name (it has twelve letters) with laborious care +on the slip of blue paper, he remarked: + +"You are of Polish extraction." + +"Born there, sir." + +He laid down the pen and leaned back to look at me as it were for +the first time. + +"Not many of your nationality in our service, I should think. I +never remember meeting one either before or after I left the sea. +Don't remember ever hearing of one. An inland people, aren't +you?" + +I said yes--very much so. We were remote from the sea not only +by situation, but also from a complete absence of indirect +association, not being a commercial nation at all, but purely +agricultural. He made then the quaint reflection that it was "a +long way for me to come out to begin a sea life"; as if sea life +were not precisely a life in which one goes a long way from home. + +I told him, smiling, that no doubt I could have found a ship much +nearer my native place, but I had thought to myself that if I was +to be a seaman, then I would be a British seaman and no other. +It was a matter of deliberate choice. + +He nodded slightly at that; and, as he kept on looking at me +interrogatively, I enlarged a little, confessing that I had spent +a little time on the way in the Mediterranean and in the West +Indies. I did not want to present myself to the British Merchant +Service in an altogether green state. It was no use telling him +that my mysterious vocation was so strong that my very wild oats +had to be sown at sea. It was the exact truth, but he would not +have understood the somewhat exceptional psychology of my +sea-going, I fear. + +"I suppose you've never come across one of your countrymen at +sea. Have you, now?" + +I admitted I never had. The examiner had given himself up to the +spirit of gossiping idleness. For myself, I was in no haste to +leave that room. Not in the least. The era of examinations was +over. I would never again see that friendly man who was a +professional ancestor, a sort of grandfather in the craft. +Moreover, I had to wait till he dismissed me, and of that there +was no sign. As he remained silent, looking at me, I added: + +"But I have heard of one, some years ago. He seems to have been +a boy serving his time on board a Liverpool ship, if I am not +mistaken." + +"What was his name?" + +I told him. + +"How did you say that?" he asked, puckering up his eyes at the +uncouth sound. + +I repeated the name very distinctly. + +"How do you spell it?" + +I told him. He moved his head at the impracticable nature of +that name, and observed: + +"It's quite as long as your own--isn't it?" + +There was no hurry. I had passed for master, and I had all the +rest of my life before me to make the best of it. That seemed a +long time. I went leisurely through a small mental calculation, +and said: + +"Not quite. Shorter by two letters, sir." + +"Is it?" The examiner pushed the signed blue slip across the +table to me, and rose from his chair. Somehow this seemed a very +abrupt ending of our relations, and I felt almost sorry to part +from that excellent man, who was master of a ship before the +whisper of the sea had reached my cradle. He offered me his hand +and wished me well. He even made a few steps toward the door +with me, and ended with good-natured advice. + +"I don't know what may be your plans, but you ought to go into +steam. When a man has got his master's certificate it's the +proper time. If I were you I would go into steam." + +I thanked him, and shut the door behind me definitely on the era +of examinations. But that time I did not walk on air, as on the +first two occasions. I walked across the hill of many beheadings +with measured steps. It was a fact, I said to myself, that I was +now a British master mariner beyond a doubt. It was not that I +had an exaggerated sense of that very modest achievement, with +which, however, luck, opportunity, or any extraneous influence +could have had nothing to do. That fact, satisfactory and +obscure in itself, had for me a certain ideal significance. It +was an answer to certain outspoken scepticism and even to some +not very kind aspersions. I had vindicated myself from what had +been cried upon as a stupid obstinacy or a fantastic caprice. I +don't mean to say that a whole country had been convulsed by my +desire to go to sea. But for a boy between fifteen and sixteen, +sensitive enough, in all conscience, the commotion of his little +world had seemed a very considerable thing indeed. So +considerable that, absurdly enough, the echoes of it linger to +this day. I catch myself in hours of solitude and retrospect +meeting arguments and charges made thirty-five years ago by +voices now forever still; finding things to say that an assailed +boy could not have found, simply because of the mysteriousness of +his impulses to himself. I understood no more than the people who +called upon me to explain myself. There was no precedent. I +verily believe mine was the only case of a boy of my nationality +and antecedents taking a, so to speak, standing jump out of his +racial surroundings and associations. For you must understand +that there was no idea of any sort of "career" in my call. Of +Russia or Germany there could be no question. The nationality, +the antecedents, made it impossible. The feeling against the +Austrian service was not so strong, and I dare say there would +have been no difficulty in finding my way into the Naval School +at Pola. It would have meant six months' extra grinding at +German, perhaps; but I was not past the age of admission, and in +other respects I was well qualified. This expedient to palliate +my folly was thought of--but not by me. I must admit that in +that respect my negative was accepted at once. That order of +feeling was comprehensible enough to the most inimical of my +critics. I was not called upon to offer explanations; but the +truth is that what I had in view was not a naval career, but the +sea. There seemed no way open to it but through France. I had +the language, at any rate, and of all the countries in Europe it +is with France that Poland has most connection. There were some +facilities for having me a little looked after, at first. +Letters were being written, answers were being received, +arrangements were being made for my departure for Marseilles, +where an excellent fellow called Solary, got at in a round about +fashion through various French channels, had promised +good-naturedly to put le jeune homme in the way of getting a +decent ship for his first start if he really wanted a taste of ce +metier de chien. + +I watched all these preparations gratefully, and kept my own +counsel. But what I told the last of my examiners was perfectly +true. Already the determined resolve that "if a seaman, then an +English seaman" was formulated in my head, though, of course, in +the Polish language. I did not know six words of English, and I +was astute enough to understand that it was much better to say +nothing of my purpose. As it was I was already looked upon as +partly insane, at least by the more distant acquaintances. The +principal thing was to get away. I put my trust in the +good-natured Solary's very civil letter to my uncle, though I was +shocked a little by the phrase about the metier de chien. + +This Solary (Baptistin), when I beheld him in the flesh, turned +out a quite young man, very good-looking, with a fine black, +short beard, a fresh complexion, and soft, merry black eyes. He +was as jovial and good natured as any boy could desire. I was +still asleep in my room in a modest hotel near the quays of the +old port, after the fatigues of the journey via Vienna, Zurich, +Lyons, when he burst in, flinging the shutters open to the sun of +Provence and chiding me boisterously for lying abed. How +pleasantly he startled me by his noisy objurgations to be up and +off instantly for a "three years' campaign in the South Seas!" O +magic words! "Une campagne de trois ans dans les mers du +sud"--that is the French for a three years' deep-water voyage. + +He gave me a delightful waking, and his friendliness was +unwearied; but I fear he did not enter upon the quest for a ship +for me in a very solemn spirit. He had been at sea himself, but +had left off at the age of twenty-five, finding he could earn his +living on shore in a much more agreeable manner. He was related +to an incredible number of Marseilles well-to-do families of a +certain class. One of his uncles was a ship-broker of good +standing, with a large connection among English ships; other +relatives of his dealt in ships' stores, owned sail-lofts, sold +chains and anchors, were master-stevedores, calkers, shipwrights. + +His grandfather (I think) was a dignitary of a kind, the Syndic +of the Pilots. I made acquaintances among these people, but +mainly among the pilots. The very first whole day I ever spent +on salt water was by invitation, in a big half-decked pilot-boat, +cruising under close reefs on the lookout, in misty, blowing +weather, for the sails of ships and the smoke of steamers rising +out there, beyond the slim and tall Planier lighthouse cutting +the line of the wind-swept horizon with a white perpendicular +stroke. They were hospitable souls, these sturdy Provencal +seamen. Under the general designation of le petit ami de +Baptistin I was made the guest of the corporation of pilots, and +had the freedom of their boats night or day. And many a day and +a night, too, did I spend cruising with these rough, kindly men, +under whose auspices my intimacy with the sea began. Many a time +"the little friend of Baptistin" had the hooded cloak of the +Mediterranean sailor thrown over him by their honest hands while +dodging at night under the lee of Chateau daft on the watch for +the lights of ships. Their sea tanned faces, whiskered or +shaved, lean or full, with the intent, wrinkled sea eyes of the +pilot breed, and here and there a thin gold hoop at the lobe of a +hairy ear, bent over my sea infancy. The first operation of +seamanship I had an opportunity of observing was the boarding of +ships at sea, at all times, in all states of the weather. They +gave it to me to the full. And I have been invited to sit in +more than one tall, dark house of the old town at their +hospitable board, had the bouillabaisse ladled out into a thick +plate by their high-voiced, broad-browed wives, talked to their +daughters--thick-set girls, with pure profiles, glorious masses +of black hair arranged with complicated art, dark eyes, and +dazzlingly white teeth. + +I had also other acquaintances of quite a different sort. One of +them, Madame Delestang, an imperious, handsome lady in a +statuesque style, would carry me off now and then on the front +seat of her carriage to the Prado, at the hour of fashionable +airing. She belonged to one of the old aristocratic families in +the south. In her haughty weariness she used to make me think of +Lady Dedlock in Dickens's "Bleak House," a work of the master for +which I have such an admiration, or rather such an intense and +unreasoning affection, dating from the days of my childhood, that +its very weaknesses are more precious to me than the strength of +other men's work. I have read it innumerable times, both in +Polish and in English; I have read it only the other day, and, by +a not very surprising inversion, the Lady Dedlock of the book +reminded me strongly of the "belle Madame Delestang." + +Her husband (as I sat facing them both), with his thin, bony nose +and a perfectly bloodless, narrow physiognomy clamped together, +as it were, by short, formal side whiskers, had nothing of Sir +Leicester Dedlock's "grand air" and courtly solemnity. He +belonged to the haute bourgeoisie only, and was a banker, with +whom a modest credit had been opened for my needs. He was such +an ardent--no, such a frozen-up, mummified Royalist that he used +in current conversation turns of speech contemporary, I should +say, with the good Henri Quatre; and when talking of money +matters, reckoned not in francs, like the common, godless herd of +post-Revolutionary Frenchmen, but in obsolete and forgotten +ecus--ecus of all money units in the world!--as though Louis +Quatorze were still promenading in royal splendour the gardens of +Versailles, and Monsieur de Colbert busy with the direction of +maritime affairs. You must admit that in a banker of the +nineteenth century it was a quaint idiosyncrasy. Luckily, in the +counting-house (it occupied part of the ground floor of the +Delestang town residence, in a silent, shady street) the accounts +were kept in modern money, so that I never had any difficulty in +making my wants known to the grave, low-voiced, decorous, +Legitimist (I suppose) clerks, sitting in the perpetual gloom of +heavily barred windows behind the sombre, ancient counters, +beneath lofty ceilings with heavily molded cornices. I always +felt, on going out, as though I had been in the temple of some +very dignified but completely temporal religion. And it was +generally on these occasions that under the great carriage +gateway Lady Ded--I mean Madame Delestang--catching sight of my +raised hat, would beckon me with an amiable imperiousness to the +side of the carriage, and suggest with an air of amused +nonchalance, "Venez donc faire un tour avec nous," to which the +husband would add an encouraging "C'est ca. Allons, montez, +jeune homme." He questioned me some times, significantly but +with perfect tact and delicacy, as to the way I employed my time, +and never failed to express the hope that I wrote regularly to my +"honoured uncle." I made no secret of the way I employed my +time, and I rather fancy that my artless tales of the pilots and +so on entertained Madame Delestang so far as that ineffable woman +could be entertained by the prattle of a youngster very full of +his new experience among strange men and strange sensations. She +expressed no opinions, and talked to me very little; yet her +portrait hangs in the gallery of my intimate memories, fixed +there by a short and fleeting episode. One day, after putting me +down at the corner of a street, she offered me her hand, and +detained me, by a slight pressure, for a moment. While the +husband sat motionless and looking straight before him, she +leaned forward in the carriage to say, with just a shade of +warning in her leisurely tone: "Il faut, cependant, faire +attention a ne pas gater sa vie." I had never seen her face so +close to mine before. She made my heart beat and caused me to +remain thoughtful for a whole evening. Certainly one must, after +all, take care not to spoil one's life. But she did not know-- +nobody could know--how impossible that danger seemed to me. + + +VII + +Can the transports of first love be calmed, checked, turned to a +cold suspicion of the future by a grave quotation from a work on +political economy? I ask--is it conceivable? Is it possible? +Would it be right? With my feet on the very shores of the sea +and about to embrace my blue-eyed dream, what could a +good-natured warning as to spoiling one's life mean to my +youthful passion? It was the most unexpected and the last, too, +of the many warnings I had received. It sounded to me very +bizarre--and, uttered as it was in the very presence of my +enchantress, like the voice of folly, the voice of ignorance. +But I was not so callous or so stupid as not to recognize there +also the voice of kindness. And then the vagueness of the +warning--because what can be the meaning of the phrase: to spoil +one's life?--arrested one's attention by its air of wise +profundity. At any rate, as I have said before, the words of la +belle Madame Delestang made me thoughtful for a whole evening. I +tried to understand and tried in vain, not having any notion of +life as an enterprise that could be mi managed. But I left off +being thoughtful shortly before midnight, at which hour, haunted +by no ghosts of the past and by no visions of the future, I +walked down the quay of the Vieux Port to join the pilot-boat of +my friends. I knew where she would be waiting for her crew, in +the little bit of a canal behind the fort at the entrance of the +harbour. The deserted quays looked very white and dry in the +moonlight, and as if frostbound in the sharp air of that December +night. A prowler or two slunk by noiselessly; a custom-house +guard, soldier-like, a sword by his side, paced close under the +bowsprits of the long row of ships moored bows on opposite the +long, slightly curved, continuous flat wall of the tall houses +that seemed to be one immense abandoned building with innumerable +windows shuttered closely. Only here and there a small, dingy +cafe for sailors cast a yellow gleam on the bluish sheen of the +flagstones. Passing by, one heard a deep murmur of voices +inside--nothing more. How quiet everything was at the end of the +quays on the last night on which I went out for a service cruise +as a guest of the Marseilles pilots! Not a footstep, except my +own, not a sigh, not a whispering echo of the usual revelry going +on in the narrow, unspeakable lanes of the Old Town reached my +ear--and suddenly, with a terrific jingling rattle of iron and +glass, the omnibus of the Jolliette on its last journey swung +around the corner of the dead wall which faces across the paved +road the characteristic angular mass of the Fort St. Jean. Three +horses trotted abreast, with the clatter of hoofs on the granite +setts, and the yellow, uproarious machine jolted violently behind +them, fantastic, lighted up, perfectly empty, and with the driver +apparently asleep on his swaying perch above that amazing racket. +I flattened myself against the wall and gasped. It was a stunning +experience. Then after staggering on a few paces in the shadow +of the fort, casting a darkness more intense than that of a +clouded night upon the canal, I saw the tiny light of a lantern +standing on the quay, and became aware of muffled figures making +toward it from various directions. Pilots of the Third Company +hastening to embark. Too sleepy to be talkative, they step on +board in silence. But a few low grunts and an enormous yawn are +heard. Somebody even ejaculates: "Ah! Coquin de sort!" and sighs +wearily at his hard fate. + +The patron of the Third Company (there were five companies of +pilots at that time, I believe) is the brother-in-law of my +friend Solary (Baptistin), a broad-shouldered, deep chested man +of forty, with a keen, frank glance which always seeks your eyes. + +He greets me by a low, hearty "He, l'ami. Comment va?" With his +clipped mustache and massive open face, energetic and at the same +time placid in expression, he is a fine specimen of the +southerner of the calm type. For there is such a type in which +the volatile southern passion is transmuted into solid force. He +is fair, but no one could mistake him for a man of the north even +by the dim gleam of the lantern standing on the quay. He is +worth a dozen of your ordinary Normans or Bretons, but then, in +the whole immense sweep of the Mediterranean shores, you could +not find half a dozen men of his stamp. + +Standing by the tiller, he pulls out his watch from under a thick +jacket and bends his head over it in the light cast into the +boat. Time's up. His pleasant voice commands, in a quiet +undertone, "Larguez." A suddenly projected arm snatches the +lantern off the quay--and, warped along by a line at first, then +with the regular tug of four heavy sweeps in the bow, the big +half-decked boat full of men glides out of the black, breathless +shadow of the fort. The open water of the avant-port glitters +under the moon as if sown over with millions of sequins, and the +long white break water shines like a thick bar of solid silver. +With a quick rattle of blocks and one single silky swish, the +sail is filled by a little breeze keen enough to have come +straight down from the frozen moon, and the boat, after the +clatter of the hauled-in sweeps, seems to stand at rest, +surrounded by a mysterious whispering so faint and unearthly that +it may be the rustling of the brilliant, overpowering moon rays +breaking like a rain-shower upon the hard, smooth, shadowless +sea. + +I may well remember that last night spent with the pilots of the +Third Company. I have known the spell of moonlight since, on +various seas and coasts--coasts of forests, of rocks, of sand +dunes--but no magic so perfect in its revelation of unsuspected +character, as though one were allowed to look upon the mystic +nature of material things. For hours I suppose no word was spoken +in that boat. The pilots, seated in two rows facing each other, +dozed, with their arms folded and their chins resting upon their +breasts. They displayed a great variety of caps: cloth, wool, +leather, peaks, ear-flaps, tassels, with a picturesque round +beret or two pulled down over the brows; and one grandfather, +with a shaved, bony face and a great beak of a nose, had a cloak +with a hood which made him look in our midst like a cowled monk +being carried off goodness knows where by that silent company of +seamen--quiet enough to be dead. + +My fingers itched for the tiller, and in due course my friend, +the patron, surrendered it to me in the same spirit in which the +family coachman lets a boy hold the reins on an easy bit of road. + +There was a great solitude around us; the islets ahead, Monte +Cristo and the Chateau daft in full light, seemed to float toward +us--so steady, so imperceptible was the progress of our boat. +"Keep her in the furrow of the moon," the patron directed me, in +a quiet murmur, sitting down ponderously in the stern-sheets and +reaching for his pipe. + +The pilot station in weather like this was only a mile or two to +the westward of the islets; and presently, as we approached the +spot, the boat we were going to relieve swam into our view +suddenly, on her way home, cutting black and sinister into the +wake of the moon under a sable wing, while to them our sail must +have been a vision of white and dazzling radiance. Without +altering the course a hair's breadth we slipped by each other +within an oar's length. A drawling, sardonic hail came out of +her. Instantly, as if by magic, our dozing pilots got on their +feet in a body. An incredible babel of bantering shouts burst +out, a jocular, passionate, voluble chatter, which lasted till +the boats were stern to stern, theirs all bright now, and, with a +shining sail to our eyes, we turned all black to their vision, +and drew away from them under a sable wing. That extraordinary +uproar died away almost as suddenly as it had begun; first one +had enough of it and sat down, then another, then three or four +together; and when all had left off with mutters and growling +half-laughs the sound of hearty chuckling became audible, +persistent, unnoticed. The cowled grandfather was very much +entertained somewhere within his hood. + +He had not joined in the shouting of jokes, neither had he moved +the least bit. He had remained quietly in his place against the +foot of the mast. I had been given to understand long before +that he had the rating of a second-class able seaman (matelot +leger) in the fleet which sailed from Toulon for the conquest of +Algeria in the year of grace 1830. And, indeed, I had seen and +examined one of the buttons of his old brown, patched coat, the +only brass button of the miscellaneous lot, flat and thin, with +the words Equipages de ligne engraved on it. That sort of +button, I believe, went out with the last of the French Bourbons. + +"I preserved it from the time of my navy service," he explained, +nodding rapidly his frail, vulture-like head. It was not very +likely that he had picked up that relic in the street. He looked +certainly old enough to have fought at Trafalgar--or, at any +rate, to have played his little part there as a powder monkey. +Shortly after we had been introduced he had informed me in a +Franco-Provencal jargon, mumbling tremulously with his toothless +jaws, that when he was a "shaver no higher than that" he had seen +the Emperor Napoleon returning from Elba. It was at night, he +narrated vaguely, without animation, at a spot between Frejus and +Antibes, in the open country. A big fire had been lit at the +side of the cross-roads. The population from several villages +had collected there, old and young--down to the very children in +arms, because the women had refused to stay at home. Tall +soldiers wearing high, hairy caps stood in a circle, facing the +people silently, and their stern eyes and big mustaches were +enough to make everybody keep at a distance. He, "being an +impudent little shaver," wriggled out of the crowd, creeping on +his hands and knees as near as he dared to the grenadiers' legs, +and peeping through discovered, standing perfectly still in the +light of the fire, "a little fat fellow in a three-cornered hat, +buttoned up in a long straight coat, with a big, pale face +inclined on one shoulder, looking something like a priest. His +hands were clasped behind his back. . . . It appears that this +was the Emperor," the ancient commented, with a faint sigh. He +was staring from the ground with all his might, when "my poor +father," who had been searching for his boy frantically every +where, pounced upon him and hauled him away by the ear. + +The tale seems an authentic recollection. He related it to me +many times, using the very same words. The grandfather honoured +me by a special and somewhat embarrassing predilection. Extremes +touch. He was the oldest member by a long way in that company, +and I was, if I may say so, its temporarily adopted baby. He had +been a pilot longer than any man in the boat could remember; +thirty--forty years. He did not seem certain himself, but it +could be found out, he suggested, in the archives of the +Pilot-office. He had been pensioned off years before, but he +went out from force of habit; and, as my friend the patron of the +company once confided to me in a whisper, "the old chap did no +harm. He was not in the way." They treated him with rough +deference. One and another would address some insignificant +remark to him now and again, but nobody really took any notice of +what he had to say. He had survived his strength, his +usefulness, his very wisdom. He wore long, green, worsted +stockings pulled up above the knee over his trousers, a sort of +woollen nightcap on his hairless cranium, and wooden clogs on his +feet. Without his hooded cloak he looked like a peasant. Half a +dozen hands would be extended to help him on board, but afterward +he was left pretty much to his own thoughts. Of course he never +did any work, except, perhaps, to cast off some rope when hailed, +"He, l'Ancien! let go the halyards there, at your hand"--or some +such request of an easy kind. + +No one took notice in any way of the chuckling within the shadow +of the hood. He kept it up for a long time with intense +enjoyment. Obviously he had preserved intact the innocence of +mind which is easily amused. But when his hilarity had exhausted +itself, he made a professional remark in a self-assertive but +quavering voice: + +"Can't expect much work on a night like this." + +No one took it up. It was a mere truism. Nothing under canvas +could be expected to make a port on such an idle night of dreamy +splendour and spiritual stillness. We would have to glide idly +to and fro, keeping our station within the appointed bearings, +and, unless a fresh breeze sprang up with the dawn, we would land +before sunrise on a small islet that, within two miles of us, +shone like a lump of frozen moonlight, to "break a crust and take +a pull at the wine bottle." I was familiar with the procedure. +The stout boat emptied of her crowd would nestle her buoyant, +capable side against the very rock--such is the perfectly smooth +amenity of the classic sea when in a gentle mood. The crust +broken and the mouthful of wine swallowed--it was literally no +more than that with this abstemious race--the pilots would pass +the time stamping their feet on the slabs of sea-salted stone and +blowing into their nipped fingers. One or two misanthropists +would sit apart, perched on boulders like manlike sea-fowl of +solitary habits; the sociably disposed would gossip scandalously +in little gesticulating knots; and there would be perpetually one +or another of my hosts taking aim at the empty horizon with the +long, brass tube of the telescope, a heavy, murderous-looking +piece of collective property, everlastingly changing hands with +brandishing and levelling movements. Then about noon (it was a +short turn of duty--the long turn lasted twenty-four hours) +another boatful of pilots would relieve us--and we should steer +for the old Phoenician port, dominated, watched over from the +ridge of a dust-gray, arid hill by the red-and-white striped pile +of the Notre Dame de la Garde. + +All this came to pass as I had foreseen in the fullness of my +very recent experience. But also something not foreseen by me +did happen, something which causes me to remember my last outing +with the pilots. It was on this occasion that my hand touched, +for the first time, the side of an English ship. + +No fresh breeze had come with the dawn, only the steady little +draught got a more keen edge on it as the eastern sky became +bright and glassy with a clean, colourless light. I t was while +we were all ashore on the islet that a steamer was picked up by +the telescope, a black speck like an insect posed on the hard +edge of the offing. She emerged rapidly to her water-line and +came on steadily, a slim hull with a long streak of smoke +slanting away from the rising sun. We embarked in a hurry, and +headed the boat out for our prey, but we hardly moved three miles +an hour. + +She was a big, high-class cargo-steamer of a type that is to be +met on the sea no more--black hull, with low, white +superstructures, powerfully rigged with three masts and a lot of +yards on the fore; two hands at her enormous wheel--steam +steering-gear was not a matter of course in these days--and with +them on the bridge three others, bulky in thick blue jackets, +ruddy-faced, muffled up, with peak caps--I suppose all her +officers. There are ships I have met more than once and known +well by sight whose names I have forgotten; but the name of that +ship seen once so many years ago in the clear flush of a cold, +pale sunrise I have not forgotten. How could I--the first +English ship on whose side I ever laid my hand! The name--I read +it letter by letter on the bow--was James Westoll. Not very +romantic, you will say. The name of a very considerable, +well-known, and universally respected North country ship-owner, I +believe. James Westoll! What better name could an honourable +hard-working ship have? To me the very grouping of the letters +is alive with the romantic feeling of her reality as I saw her +floating motionless and borrowing an ideal grace from the austere +purity of the light. + +We were then very near her and, on a sudden impulse, I +volunteered to pull bow in the dinghy which shoved off at once to +put the pilot on board while our boat, fanned by the faint air +which had attended us all through the night, went on gliding +gently past the black, glistening length of the ship. A few +strokes brought us alongside, and it was then that, for the very +first time in my life, I heard myself addressed in English--the +speech of my secret choice, of my future, of long friendships, of +the deepest affections, of hours of toil and hours of ease, and +of solitary hours, too, of books read, of thoughts pursued, of +remembered emotions--of my very dreams! And if (after being thus +fashioned by it in that part of me which cannot decay) I dare not +claim it aloud as my own, then, at any rate, the speech of my +children. Thus small events grow memorable by the passage of +time. As to the quality of the address itself I cannot say it +was very striking. Too short for eloquence and devoid of all +charm of tone, it consisted precisely of the three words "Look +out there!" growled out huskily above my head. + +It proceeded from a big fat fellow (he had an obtrusive, hairy +double chin) in a blue woollen shirt and roomy breeches pulled up +very high, even to the level of his breastbone, by a pair of +braces quite exposed to public view. As where he stood there was +no bulwark, but only a rail and stanchions, I was able to take in +at a glance the whole of his voluminous person from his feet to +the high crown of his soft black hat, which sat like an absurd +flanged cone on his big head. The grotesque and massive aspect +of that deck hand (I suppose he was that--very likely the +lamp-trimmer) surprised me very much. My course of reading, of +dreaming, and longing for the sea had not prepared me for a sea +brother of that sort. I never met again a figure in the least +like his except in the illustrations to Mr. W. W. Jacobs's most +entertaining tales of barges and coasters; but the inspired +talent of Mr. Jacobs for poking endless fun at poor, innocent +sailors in a prose which, however extravagant in its felicitous +invention, is always artistically adjusted to observed truth, was +not yet. Perhaps Mr. Jacobs himself was not yet. I fancy that, +at most, if he had made his nurse laugh it was about all he had +achieved at that early date. + +Therefore, I repeat, other disabilities apart, I could not have +been prepared for the sight of that husky old porpoise. The +object of his concise address was to call my attention to a rope +which he incontinently flung down for me to catch. I caught it, +though it was not really necessary, the ship having no way on her +by that time. Then everything went on very swiftly. The dinghy +came with a slight bump against the steamer's side; the pilot, +grabbing for the rope ladder, had scrambled half-way up before I +knew that our task of boarding was done; the harsh, muffled +clanging of the engine-room telegraph struck my ear through the +iron plate; my companion in the dinghy was urging me to "shove +off--push hard"; and when I bore against the smooth flank of the +first English ship I ever touched in my life, I felt it already +throbbing under my open palm. + +Her head swung a little to the west, pointing toward the +miniature lighthouse of the Jolliette breakwater, far away there, +hardly distinguishable against the land. The dinghy danced a +squashy, splashy jig in the wash of the wake; and, turning in my +seat, I followed the James Westoll with my eyes. Before she had +gone in a quarter of a mile she hoisted her flag, as the harbour +regulations prescribe for arriving and departing ships. I saw it +suddenly flicker and stream out on the flag staff. The Red +Ensign! In the pellucid, colourless atmosphere bathing the drab +and gray masses of that southern land, the livid islets, the sea +of pale, glassy blue under the pale, glassy sky of that cold +sunrise, it was, as far as the eye could reach, the only spot of +ardent colour--flame-like, intense, and presently as minute as +the tiny red spark the concentrated reflection of a great fire +kindles in the clear heart of a globe of crystal. The Red +Ensign--the symbolic, protecting, warm bit of bunting flung wide +upon the seas, and destined for so many years to be the only roof +over my head. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Etext of A Personal Record by Conrad + |