Joseph Conrad - The Collected Works of Joseph Conrad - Novels, Short Stories, Letters & Memoirs

‘This movement and these words caused two well-groomed male globe-trotters at a neighbouring table to look up in alarm from their iced pudding. I rose, and we passed into the front gallery for coffee and cigars.

‘On little octagon tables candles burned in glass globes; clumps of stiff-leaved plants separated sets of cosy wicker chairs; and between the pairs of columns, whose reddish shafts caught in a long row the sheen from the tall windows, the night, glittering and sombre, seemed to hang like a splendid drapery. The riding lights of ships winked afar like setting stars, and the hills across the roadstead resembled rounded black masses of arrested thunder-clouds.

‘“I couldn’t clear out,” Jim began. “The skipper did — that’s all very well for him. I couldn’t, and I wouldn’t. They all got out of it in one way or another, but it wouldn’t do for me.”

‘I listened with concentrated attention, not daring to stir in my chair; I wanted to know — and to this day I don’t know, I can only guess. He would be confident and depressed all in the same breath, as if some conviction of innate blamelessness had checked the truth writhing within him at every turn. He began by saying, in the tone in which a man would admit his inability to jump a twenty-foot wall, that he could never go home now; and this declaration recalled to my mind what Brierly had said, “that the old parson in Essex seemed to fancy his sailor son not a little.”

‘I can’t tell you whether Jim knew he was especially “fancied,” but the tone of his references to “my Dad” was calculated to give me a notion that the good old rural dean was about the finest man that ever had been worried by the cares of a large family since the beginning of the world. This, though never stated, was implied with an anxiety that there should be no mistake about it, which was really very true and charming, but added a poignant sense of lives far off to the other elements of the story. “He has seen it all in the home papers by this time,” said Jim. “I can never face the poor old chap.” I did not dare to lift my eyes at this till I heard him add, “I could never explain. He wouldn’t understand.” Then I looked up. He was smoking reflectively, and after a moment, rousing himself, began to talk again. He discovered at once a desire that I should not confound him with his partners in — in crime, let us call it. He was not one of them; he was altogether of another sort. I gave no sign of dissent. I had no intention, for the sake of barren truth, to rob him of the smallest particle of any saving grace that would come in his way. I didn’t know how much of it he believed himself. I didn’t know what he was playing up to — if he was playing up to anything at all — and I suspect he did not know either; for it is my belief no man ever understands quite his own artful dodges to escape from the grim shadow of self-knowledge. I made no sound all the time he was wondering what he had better do after “that stupid inquiry was over.”

‘Apparently he shared Brierly’s contemptuous opinion of these proceedings ordained by law. He would not know where to turn, he confessed, clearly thinking aloud rather than talking to me. Certificate gone, career broken, no money to get away, no work that he could obtain as far as he could see. At home he could perhaps get something; but it meant going to his people for help, and that he would not do. He saw nothing for it but ship before the mast — could get perhaps a quartermaster’s billet in some steamer. Would do for a quartermaster. . . . “Do you think you would?” I asked pitilessly. He jumped up, and going to the stone balustrade looked out into the night. In a moment he was back, towering above my chair with his youthful face clouded yet by the pain of a conquered emotion. He had understood very well I did not doubt his ability to steer a ship. In a voice that quavered a bit he asked me why did I say that? I had been “no end kind” to him. I had not even laughed at him when — here he began to mumble — “that mistake, you know — made a confounded ass of myself.” I broke in by saying rather warmly that for me such a mistake was not a matter to laugh at. He sat down and drank deliberately some coffee, emptying the small cup to the last drop. “That does not mean I admit for a moment the cap fitted,” he declared distinctly. “No?” I said. “No,” he affirmed with quiet decision. “Do you know what you would have done? Do you? And you don’t think yourself” . . . he gulped something . . . “you don’t think yourself a — a — cur?”

‘And with this — upon my honour! — he looked up at me inquisitively. It was a question it appears — a bond-fide question! However, he didn’t wait for an answer. Before I could recover he went on, with his eyes straight before him, as if reading off something written on the body of the night. “It is all in being ready. I wasn’t; not — not then. I don’t want to excuse myself; but I would like to explain — I would like somebody to understand — somebody — one person at least! You! Why not you?”

‘It was solemn, and a little ridiculous too, as they always are, those struggles of an individual trying to save from the fire his idea of what his moral identity should be, this precious notion of a convention, only one of the rules of the game, nothing more, but all the same so terribly effective by its assumption of unlimited power over natural instincts, by the awful penalties of its failure. He began his story quietly enough. On board that Dale Line steamer that had picked up these four floating in a boat upon the discreet sunset glow of the sea, they had been after the first day looked askance upon. The fat skipper told some story, the others had been silent, and at first it had been accepted. You don’t cross-examine poor castaways you had the good luck to save, if not from cruel death, then at least from cruel suffering. Afterwards, with time to think it over, it might have struck the officers of the Avondale that there was “something fishy” in the affair; but of course they would keep their doubts to themselves. They had picked up the captain, the mate, and two engineers of the steamer Patna sunk at sea, and that, very properly, was enough for them. I did not ask Jim about the nature of his feelings during the ten days he spent on board. From the way he narrated that part I was at liberty to infer he was partly stunned by the discovery he had made — the discovery about himself — and no doubt was at work trying to explain it away to the only man who was capable of appreciating all its tremendous magnitude. You must understand he did not try to minimise its importance. Of that I am sure; and therein lies his distinction. As to what sensations he experienced when he got ashore and heard the unforeseen conclusion of the tale in which he had taken such a pitiful part, he told me nothing of them, and it is difficult to imagine.

‘I wonder whether he felt the ground cut from under his feet? I wonder? But no doubt he managed to get a fresh foothold very soon. He was ashore a whole fortnight waiting in the Sailors’ Home, and as there were six or seven men staying there at the time, I had heard of him a little. Their languid opinion seemed to be that, in addition to his other shortcomings, he was a sulky brute. He had passed these days on the verandah, buried in a long chair, and coming out of his place of sepulture only at meal-times or late at night, when he wandered on the quays all by himself, detached from his surroundings, irresolute and silent, like a ghost without a home to haunt. “I don’t think I’ve spoken three words to a living soul in all that time,” he said, making me very sorry for him; and directly he added, “One of these fellows would have been sure to blurt out something I had made up my mind not to put up with, and I didn’t want a row. No! Not then. I was too — too . . . I had no heart for it.” “So that bulkhead held out after all,” I remarked cheerfully. “Yes,” he murmured, “it held. And yet I swear to you I felt it bulge under my hand.” “It’s extraordinary what strains old iron will stand sometimes,” I said. Thrown back in his seat, his legs stiffly out and arms hanging down, he nodded slightly several times. You could not conceive a sadder spectacle. Suddenly he lifted his head; he sat up; he slapped his thigh. “Ah! what a chance missed! My God! what a chance missed!” he blazed out, but the ring of the last “missed” resembled a cry wrung out by pain.