约瑟夫康拉德（Joseph Conrad，18571924），波兰裔英国著名作家，西方现代主义文学的先驱之一。1857年12月3日，康拉德出生在被俄国分割出去原属波兰的波多利亚地区，他的父亲是位爱国（波兰）作家。很小的时候，他在父亲的指导下阅读了大量法国、英国和波兰著名作家的作品，这为他日后从事文学创作奠定了坚实的基础。在康拉德8岁和12岁时，他的母亲和父亲分别因肺结核病去世，后由舅舅抚养。1874年10月13日，他前往法国马赛学习航海，后在英国商船上担任水手、船长，在海上生活达20年，曾到过南美、非洲、东南亚等地，这是他从事文学创作的素材源泉。1886年，康拉德加入英国国籍。1889年，他开始文学创作，一生共写了14部长篇小说、28篇短篇小说和两篇回忆录。他的作品根据题材可分为航海小说、丛林小说和社会政治小说。他的航海小说出色地传达了海洋上狂风暴雨的气氛，以及水手们艰苦的航海生活和深刻细微的心理活动，代表作有《水仙号上的黑家伙》（The Nigger of the Narcissus（1897））、《台风》（Typhoon（1902））、《青春》（Youth（1902））、《阴影线》（The Shadow Line（1917））等。他的丛林小说大部分都是由一个叫马洛的人叙述的，以《黑暗的心》（Heart of Darkness（1899））、《吉姆爷》（Lord Jim（1900））为代表，探讨道德与人的灵魂问题，包含着深刻的社会历史内容。他的社会政治小说《诺斯特罗莫》（Nostromo（1904））、《密探》（The Secret Agent（1907））、《罗曼亲王》（Prince Roman（1911））及《在西方的眼睛下》（Under Western Eyes（1911））等，表现了他对殖民主义的憎恶。康拉德是英国现代小说的先行者之一，他的创作兼用现实主义和浪漫主义的手法，擅长细致入微的心理描写，行文流畅，有时略带嘲讽。他曾说他要用文字使读者听到、感觉到、更重要得是看到他所表达的东西。读者将因此而产生各种不同的感受：鼓舞、安慰、恐惧、陶醉等，还将看到真理之所在。康拉德把福楼拜和莫泊桑的现实主义手法引入英国小说，并从英国小说那里继承了探索道德问题的传统。他的散文也写得丰富多彩，给人以美的享受。约瑟夫康拉德（Joseph Conrad，18571924），波兰裔英国著名作家，西方现代主义文学的先驱之一。1857年12月3日，康拉德出生在被俄国分割出去原属波兰的波多利亚地区，他的父亲是位爱国（波兰）作家。很小的时候，他在父亲的指导下阅读了大量法国、英国和波兰著名作家的作品，这为他日后从事文学创作奠定了坚实的基础。在康拉德8岁和12岁时，他的母亲和父亲分别因肺结核病去世，后由舅舅抚养。1874年10月13日，他前往法国马赛学习航海，后在英国商船上担任水手、船长，在海上生活达20年，曾到过南美、非洲、东南亚等地，这是他从事文学创作的素材源泉。1886年，康拉德加入英国国籍。1889年，他开始文学创作，一生共写了14部长篇小说、28篇短篇小说和两篇回忆录。他的作品根据题材可分为航海小说、丛林小说和社会政治小说。他的航海小说出色地传达了海洋上狂风暴雨的气氛，以及水手们艰苦的航海生活和深刻细微的心理活动，代表作有《水仙号上的黑家伙》（The Nigger of the Narcissus（1897））、《台风》（Typhoon（1902））、《青春》（Youth（1902））、《阴影线》（The Shadow Line（1917））等。他的丛林小说大部分都是由一个叫马洛的人叙述的，以《黑暗的心》（Heart of Darkness（1899））、《吉姆爷》（Lord Jim（1900））为代表，探讨道德与人的灵魂问题，包含着深刻的社会历史内容。他的社会政治小说《诺斯特罗莫》（Nostromo（1904））、《密探》（The Secret Agent（1907））、《罗曼亲王》（Prince Roman（1911））及《在西方的眼睛下》（Under Western Eyes（1911））等，表现了他对殖民主义的憎恶。康拉德是英国现代小说的先行者之一，他的创作兼用现实主义和浪漫主义的手法，擅长细致入微的心理描写，行文流畅，有时略带嘲讽。他曾说他要用文字使读者听到、感觉到、更重要得是看到他所表达的东西。读者将因此而产生各种不同的感受：鼓舞、安慰、恐惧、陶醉等，还将看到真理之所在。康拉德把福楼拜和莫泊桑的现实主义手法引入英国小说，并从英国小说那里继承了探索道德问题的传统。他的散文也写得丰富多彩，给人以美的享受。
第五章Chapter 5马罗回忆着当时的情景。在那四个人回到岸上之前，帕特纳号上发生的故事已经广为人知，议论持续了两个星期。在一个早晨，马罗在港务局台阶上的背阴处，终于看到了议论的对象帕特纳号的船长、轮机长、副轮机手，以及船上的大副吉姆。马罗回忆道： 船长的腰围显然大得离谱，他被称为是热带地区最胖的家伙。那天，他心急火燎地过来找船务主任阿齐卢斯韦尔。据说当时船务主任正在训斥他的主任科员，突然感觉到身后有个圆滚滚的庞然大物。阿齐转过身来，发现是帕特纳号的船长，于是带他去见了艾略特船长。艾略特船长把这个肥胖的家伙狠狠训斥了一顿，然后把他赶了出来。我站在窗外都能感觉到他内心的愤怒。受了气的船长去和另外三个人汇合，我也理所当然地看到了吉姆。很难想象，有着这么美好外表的人会干出这样的缺德事。他看上去是如此的无懈可击，充满希望，他的为人和他的所作所为完全对不上呀！正当我感慨万分之际，胖子船长还在继续他的咒骂。他以一种恼怒的神情向我吹嘘着他的人际广泛，借此掩盖他被没收航海证明所带来的不甘和愤怒。我没有过多理会他，目光重新回到吉姆身上。他身上有诚实的信仰和天生的勇气，一种在引诱与腐蚀面前不假思索的坚定。他不应该是这样的人。马罗的话语中透露着对吉姆的偏爱。他认为吉姆的外表和他亲手带过的好小伙子一样，诚实而勇敢，是干航海的好材料。但由于出了这事儿，外表纯得像一块新金币的吉姆似乎掺杂了某种邪恶的合金，马罗不禁怀疑，没准吉姆只是一块黄铜罢了。胖子船长没有理会瘦高的轮机长和断了一只手的副轮机手，他用尽全力挤进了一辆看似容纳不下他的马车，在一团灰尘中拐了个弯，消失在视线里。副轮机手试图追上这辆马车，显然这只是徒劳。开庭的前一天，我去了医院看望我船上的一个手下，恰好又看到了这两个人。副轮机手还是带着夹板，很浮躁。而那个轮机长也躺在医院里，这却让我大吃一惊。他对这个港口很熟悉。开酒吧的马利安尼对他毕恭毕敬，让他喝了很多酒。因此他那会儿看上去有点神志不清。我委婉地询问他有关帕特纳号的情况，他喃喃自语了一会儿，吐出一句船上都是爬虫。随即开始发出刺耳的嚎叫。他似乎有些幻觉，整个人就像被电击一样的急促抖动，以至于周边的伤号和我都忍受不了。当我逃下楼梯的时候，看到了医院的一个外科医生。他告诉我，轮机长因为酒喝太多而酒精中毒了，所以疯话连篇。最后他交代说，以轮机长现在的情况，是不能出庭受审的，不过他的证词也并不是那么要紧。 ? h yes. I attended the inquiry, he would say, and to this day I havent left off wondering why I went. I am willing to believe each of us has a guardian angel, if you fellows will concede to me that each of us has a familiar devil as well. I want you to own up, because I dont like to feel exceptional in any way, and I know I have him the devil, I mean. I havent seen him, of course, but I go upon circumstantial evidence. He is there right enough, and, being malicious, he lets me in for that kind of thing. What kind of thing, you ask? Why, the inquiry thing, the yellow-dog thing you wouldnt think a mangy, native tyke would be allowed to trip up people in the verandah of a magistrates court, would you? the kind of thing that by devious, unexpected, truly diabolical ways causes me to run up against men with soft spots, with hard spots, with hidden plague spots, by Jove! and loosens their tongues at the sight of me for their infernal confidences; as though, forsooth, I had no confidences to make to myself, as though God help me! I didnt have enough confidential information about myself to harrow my own soul till the end of my appointed time. And what I have done to be thus favoured I want to know. I declare I am as full of my own concerns as the next man, and I have as much memory as the average pilgrim in this valley, so you see I am not particularly fit to be a receptacle of confessions. Then why? Cant tell unless it be to make time pass away after dinner. Charley, my dear chap, your dinner was extremely good, and in consequence these men here look upon a quiet rubber as a tumultuous occupation. They wallow in your good chairs and think to themselves, Hang exertion. Let that Marlow talk.Talk! So be it. And its easy enough to talk of Master Jim, after a good spread, two hundred feet above the sea-level, with a box of decent cigars handy, on a blessed evening of freshness and starlight that would make the best of us forget we are only on sufferance here and got to pick our way in cross lights, watching every precious minute and every irremediable step, trusting we shall manage yet to go out decently in the end but not so sure of it after all and with dashed little help to expect from those we touch elbows with right and left. Of course there are men here and there to whom the whole of life is like an after-dinner hour with a cigar; easy, pleasant, empty, perhaps enlivened by some fable of strife to be forgotten before the end is told before the end is told even if there happens to be any end to it.My eyes met his for the first time at that inquiry. You must know that everybody connected in any way with the sea was there, because the affair had been notorious for days, ever since that mysterious cable message came from Aden to start us all cackling. I say mysterious, because it was so in a sense though it contained a naked fact, about as naked and ugly as a fact can well be. The whole waterside talked of nothing else. First thing in the morning as I was dressing in my state-room, I would hear through the bulkhead my Parsee Dubash jabbering about the Patna with the steward, while he drank a cup of tea, by favour, in the pantry. No sooner on shore I would meet some acquaintance, and the first remark would be, Did you ever hear of anything to beat this? and according to his kind the man would smile cynically, or look sad, or let out a swear or two. Complete strangers would accost each other familiarly, just for the sake of easing their minds on the subject： every confounded loafer in the town came in for a harvest of drinks over this affair： you heard of it in the harbour office, at every ship-brokers, at your agents, from whites, from natives, from half-castes, from the very boatmen squatting half naked on the stone steps as you went up by Jove! There was some indignation, not a few jokes, and no end of discussions as to what had become of them, you know. This went on for a couple of weeks or more, and the opinion that whatever was mysterious in this affair would turn out to be tragic as well, began to prevail, when one fine morning, as I was standing in the shade by the steps of the harbour office, I perceived four men walking towards me along the quay. I wondered for a while where that queer lot had sprung from, and suddenly, I may say, I shouted to myself, Here they are!There they were, sure enough, three of them as large as life, and one much larger of girth than any living man has a right to be, just landed with a good breakfast inside of them from an outward-bound Dale Line steamer that had come in about an hour after sunrise. There could be no mistake; I spotted the jolly skipper of the Patna at the first glance： the fattest man in the whole blessed tropical belt clear round that good old earth of ours. Moreover, nine months or so before, I had come across him in Samarang. His steamer was loading in the Roads, and he was abusing the tyrannical institutions of the German empire, and soaking himself in beer all day long and day after day in De Jonghs back-shop, till De Jongh, who charged a guilder for every bottle without as much as the quiver of an eyelid, would beckon me aside, and, with his little leathery face all puckered up, declare confidentially, Business is business, but this man, captain, he make me very sick. Tfui!I was looking at him from the shade. He was hurrying on a little in advance, and the sunlight beating on him brought out his bulk in a startling way. He made me think of a trained baby elephant walking on hind-legs. He was extravagantly gorgeous too got up in a soiled sleeping-suit, bright green and deep orange vertical stripes, with a pair of ragged straw slippers on his bare feet, and somebodys cast-off pith hat, very dirty and two sizes too small for him, tied up with a manilla rope-yarn on the top of his big head. You understand a man like that hasnt the ghost of a chance when it comes to borrowing clothes. Very well. On he came in hot haste, without a look right or left, passed within three feet of me, and in the innocence of his heart went on pelting upstairs into the harbour office to make his deposition, or report, or whatever you like to call it.It appears he addressed himself in the first instance to the principal shipping-master. Archie Ruthvel had just come in, and, as his story goes, was about to begin his arduous day by giving a dressing-down to his chief clerk. Some of you might have known him an obliging little Portuguese half-caste with a miserably skinny neck, and always on the hop to get something from the shipmasters in the way of eatables a piece of salt pork, a bag of biscuits, a few potatoes, or what not. One voyage, I recollect, I tipped him a live sheep out of the remnant of my sea-stock： not that I wanted him to do anything for me he couldnt, you know but because his child-like belief in the sacred right to perquisites quite touched my heart. It was so strong as to be almost beautiful. The race the two races rather and the climate .?.?. However, never mind. I know where I have a friend for life.Well, Ruthvel says he was giving him a severe lecture on official morality, I suppose when he heard a kind of subdued commotion at his back, and turning his head he saw, in his own words, something round and enormous, resembling a sixteen-hundred-weight sugar-hogshead wrapped in striped flannelette, up-ended in the middle of the large floor space in the office. He declares he was so taken aback that for quite an appreciable time he did not realise the thing was alive, and sat still wondering for what purpose and by what means that object had been transported in front of his desk. The archway from the ante-room was crowded with punkah-pullers, sweepers, police peons, the coxswain and crew of the harbour steam-launch, all craning their necks and almost climbing on each others backs. Quite a riot. By that time the fellow had managed to tug and jerk his hat clear of his head, and advanced with slight bows at Ruthvel, who told me the sight was so discomposing that for some time he listened, quite unable to make out what that apparition wanted. It spoke in a voice harsh and lugubrious but intrepid, and little by little it dawned upon Archie that this was a development of the Patna case. He says that as soon as he understood who it was before him he felt quite unwell Archie is so sympathetic and easily upset but pulled himself together and shouted Stop! I cant listen to you. You must go to the Master Attendant. I cant possibly listen to you. Captain Elliot is the man you want to see. This way, this way. He jumped up, ran round that long counter, pulled, shoved： the other let him, surprised but obedient at first, and only at the door of the private office some sort of animal instinct made him hang back and snort like a frightened bullock. Look here! whats up? Let go! Look here! Archie flung open the door without knocking. The master of the Patna, sir, he shouts. Go in, captain. He saw the old man lift his head from some writing so sharp that his nose-nippers fell off, banged the door to, and fled to his desk, where he had some papers waiting for his signature： but he says the row that burst out in there was so awful that he couldnt collect his senses sufficiently to remember the spelling of his own name. Archies the most sensitive shipping-master in the two hemispheres. He declares he felt as though he had thrown a man to a hungry lion. No doubt the noise was great. I heard it down below, and I have every reason to believe it was heard clear across the Esplanade as far as the band-stand. Old father Elliot had a great stock of words and could shout and didnt mind who he shouted at either. He would have shouted at the Viceroy himself. As he used to tell me： I am as high as I can get; my pension is safe. Ive a few pounds laid by, and if they dont like my notions of duty I would just as soon go home as not. I am an old man, and I have always spoken my mind. All I care for now is to see my girls married before I die. He was a little crazy on that point. His three daughters were awfully nice, though they resembled him amazingly, and on the mornings he woke up with a gloomy view of their matrimonial prospects the office would read it in his eye and tremble, because, they said, he was sure to have somebody for breakfast. However, that morning he did not eat the renegade, but, if I may be allowed to carry on the metaphor, chewed him up very small, so to speak, and ah! ejected him again.Thus in a very few moments I saw his monstrous bulk descend in haste and stand still on the outer steps. He had stopped close to me for the purpose of profound meditation： his large purple cheeks quivered. He was biting his thumb, and after a while noticed me with a sidelong vexed look. The other three chaps that had landed with him made a little group waiting at some distance. There was a sallow-faced, mean little chap with his arm in a sling, and a long individual in a blue flannel coat, as dry as a chip and no stouter than a broomstick, with drooping grey moustaches, who looked about him with an air of jaunty imbecility. The third was an upstanding, broad-shouldered youth, with his hands in his pockets, turning his back on the other two who appeared to be talking together earnestly. He stared across the empty Esplanade. A ramshackle gharry, all dust and venetian blinds, pulled up short opposite the group, and the driver, throwing up his right foot over his knee, gave himself up to the critical examination of his toes. The young chap, making no movement, not even stirring his head, just stared into the sunshine. This was my first view of Jim. He looked as unconcerned and unapproachable as only the young can look. There he stood, clean-limbed, clean-faced, firm on his feet, as promising a boy as the sun ever shone on; and, looking at him, knowing all he knew and a little more too, I was as angry as though I had detected him trying to get something out of me by false pretences. He had no business to look so sound. I thought to myself well, if this sort can go wrong like that .?.?. and I felt as though I could fling down my hat and dance on it from sheer mortification, as I once saw the skipper of an Italian barque do because his duffer of a mate got into a mess with his anchors when making a flying moor in a roadstead full of ships. I asked myself, seeing him there apparently so much at ease is he silly? is he callous? He seemed ready to start whistling a tune. And note, I did not care a rap about the behaviour of the other two. Their persons somehow fitted the tale that was public property, and was going to be the subject of an official inquiry. That old mad rogue upstairs called me a hound, said the captain of the Patna. I cant tell whether he recognised me I rather think he did; but at any rate our glances met. He glared I smiled; hound was the very mildest epithet that had reached me through the open window. Did he? I said from some strange inability to hold my tongue. He nodded, bit his thumb again, swore under his breath： then lifting his head and looking at me with sullen and passionate impudence Bah! the Pacific is big, my friend. You damned Englishmen can do your worst; I know where theres plenty room for a man like me： I am well aguaindt in Apia, in Honolulu, in .?.?. He paused reflectively, while without effort I could depict to myself the sort of people he was aguaindt with in those places. I wont make a secret of it that I had been aguaindt with not a few of that sort myself. There are times when a man must act as though life were equally sweet in any company. Ive known such a time, and, whats more, I shant now pretend to pull a long face over my necessity, because a good many of that bad company from want of moral moral what shall I say? posture, or from some other equally profound cause, were twice as instructive and twenty times more amusing than the usual respectable thief of commerce you fellows ask to sit at your table without any real necessity from habit, from cowardice, from good-nature, from a hundred sneaking and inadequate reasons.You Englishmen are all rogues, went on my patriotic Flensborg or Stettin Australian. I really dont recollect now what decent little port on the shores of the Baltic was defiled by being the nest of that precious bird. What are you to shout? Eh? You tell me? You no better than other people, and that old rogue he make Gottam fuss with me. His thick carcass trembled on its legs that were like a pair of pillars; it trembled from head to foot. Thats what you English always make make a tam fuss for any little thing, because I was not born in your tam country. Take away my certificate. Take it. I dont want the certificate. A man like me dont want your verfluchte certificate. I shpit on it. He spat. I vill an Amerigan citizen begome, he cried, fretting and fuming and shuffling his feet as if to free his ankles from some invisible and mysterious grasp that would not let him get away from that spot. He made himself so warm that the top of his bullet head positively smoked. Nothing mysterious prevented me from going away： curiosity is the most obvious of sentiments, and it held me there to see the effect of a full information upon that young fellow who, hands in pockets, and turning his back upon the sidewalk, gazed across the grass-plots of the Esplanade at the yellow portico of the Malabar Hotel with the air of a man about to go for a walk as soon as his friend is ready. Thats how he looked, and it was odious. I waited to see him overwhelmed, confounded, pierced through and through, squirming like an impaled beetle and I was half afraid to see it too if you understand what I mean. Nothing more awful than to watch a man who has been found out, not in a crime but in a more than criminal weakness. The commonest sort of fortitude prevents us from becoming criminals in a legal sense; it is from weakness unknown, but perhaps suspected, as in some parts of the world you suspect a deadly snake in every bush from weakness that may lie hidden, watched or unwatched, prayed against or manfully scorned, repressed or maybe ignored more than half a lifetime, not one of us is safe. We are snared into doing things for which we get called names, and things for which we get hanged, and yet the spirit may well survive survive the condemnation, survive the halter, by Jove! And there are things they look small enough sometimes too by which some of us are totally and completely undone. I watched the youngster there. I liked his appearance; I knew his appearance; he came from the right place; he was one of us. He stood there for all the parentage of his kind, for men and women by no means clever or amusing, but whose very existence is based upon honest faith, and upon the instinct of courage. I dont mean military courage, or civil courage, or any special kind of courage. I mean just that inborn ability to look temptations straight in the face a readiness unintellectual enough, goodness knows, but without pose a power of resistance, dont you see, ungracious if you like, but priceless an unthinking and blessed stiffness before the outward and inward terrors, before the might of nature and the seductive corruption of men backed by a faith invulnerable to the strength of facts, to the contagion of example, to the solicitation of ideas. Hang ideas! They are tramps, vagabonds, knocking at the back-door of your mind, each taking a little of your substance, each carrying away some crumb of that belief in a few simple notions you must cling to if you want to live decently and would like to die easy!This has nothing to do with Jim, directly; only he was outwardly so typical of that good, stupid kind we like to feel marching right and left of us in life, of the kind that is not disturbed by the vagaries of intelligence and the perversions of of nerves, let us say. He was the kind of fellow you would, on the strength of his looks, leave in charge of the deck figuratively and professionally speaking. I say I would, and I ought to know. Havent I turned out youngsters enough in my time, for the service of the Red Rag, to the craft of the sea, to the craft whose whole secret could be expressed in one short sentence, and yet must be driven afresh every day into young heads till it becomes the component part of every waking thought till it is present in every dream of their young sleep! The sea has been good to me, but when I remember all these boys that passed through my hands, some grown up now and some drowned by this time, but all good stuff for the sea, I dont think I have done badly by it either. Were I to go home to-morrow, I bet that before two days passed over my head some sunburnt young chief mate would overtake me at some dock gateway or other, and a fresh deep voice speaking above my hat would ask： Dont you remember me, sir? Why! little So-and-so. Such and such a ship. It was my first voyage. And I would remember a bewildered little shaver, no higher than the back of this chair, with a mother and perhaps a big sister on the quay, very quiet but too upset to wave their handkerchiefs at the ship that glides out gently between the pier-heads; or perhaps some decent middle-aged father who had come early with his boy to see him off, and stays all the morning, because he is interested in the windlass apparently, and stays too long, and has got to scramble ashore at last with no time at all to say good-bye. The mud pilot on the poop sings out to me in a drawl, Hold her with the check line for a moment, Mister Mate. Theres a gentleman wants to get ashore. .?.?. Up with you, sir. Nearly got carried off to Talcahuano, didnt you? Nows your time; easy does it. .?.?. All right. Slack away again forward there. The tugs, smoking like the pit of perdition, get hold and churn the old river into fury; the gentleman ashore is dusting his knees the benevolent steward has shied his umbrella after him. All very proper. He has offered his bit of sacrifice to the sea, and now he may go home pretending he thinks nothing of it; and the little willing victim shall be very sea-sick before next morning. By-and-by, when he has learned all the little mysteries and the one great secret of the craft, he shall be fit to live or die as the sea may decree; and the man who had taken a hand in this fool game, in which the sea wins every toss, will be pleased to have his back slapped by a heavy young hand, and to hear a cheery sea-puppy voice： Do you remember me, sir? The little So-and-so.I tell you this is good; it tells you that once in your life at least you had gone the right way to work. I have been thus slapped, and I have winced, for the slap was heavy, and I have glowed all day long and gone to bed feeling less lonely in the world by virtue of that hearty thump. Dont I remember the little So-and-sos! I tell you I ought to know the right kind of looks. I would have trusted the deck to that youngster on the strength of a single glance, and gone to sleep with both eyes and, by Jove! it wouldnt have been safe. There are depths of horror in that thought. He looked as genuine as a new sovereign, but there was some infernal alloy in his metal. How much? The least thing the least drop of something rare and accursed; the least drop! but he made you standing there with his dont-care-hang air he made you wonder whether perchance he were nothing more rare than brass.I couldnt believe it. I tell you I wanted to see him squirm for the honour of the craft. The other two no-account chaps spotted their captain, and began to move slowly towards us. They chatted together as they strolled, and I did not care any more than if they had not been visible to the naked eye. They grinned at each other might have been exchanging jokes, for all I know. I saw that with one of them it was a case of a broken arm; and as to the long individual with grey moustaches he was the chief engineer, and in various ways a pretty notorious personality. They were nobodies. They approached. The skipper gazed in an inanimate way between his feet： he seemed to be swollen to an unnatural size by some awful disease, by the mysterious action of an unknown poison. He lifted his head, saw the two before him waiting, opened his mouth with an extraordinary, sneering contortion of his puffed face to speak to them, I suppose and then a thought seemed to strike him. His thick, purplish lips came together without a sound, he went off in a resolute waddle to the gharry and began to jerk at the door-handle with such a blind brutality of impatience that I expected to see the whole concern overturned on its side, pony and all. The driver, shaken out of his meditation over the sole of his foot, displayed at once all the signs of intense terror, and held with both hands, looking round from his box at this vast carcass forcing its way into his conveyance. The little machine shook and rocked tumultuously, and the crimson nape of that lowered neck, the size of those straining thighs, the immense heaving of that dingy, striped green-and-orange back, the whole burrowing effort of that gaudy and sordid mass, troubled ones sense of probability with a droll and fearsome effect, like one of those grotesque and distinct visions that scare and fascinate one in a fever. He disappeared. I half expected the roof to split in two, the little box on wheels to burst open in the manner of a ripe cotton-pod but it only sank with a click of flattened springs, and suddenly one venetian blind rattled down. His shoulders reappeared, jammed in the small opening; his head hung out, distended and tossing like a captive balloon, perspiring, furious, spluttering. He reached for the gharry-wallah with vicious flourishes of a fist as dumpy and red as a lump of raw meat. He roared at him to be off, to go on. Where? Into the Pacific, perhaps. The driver lashed; the pony snorted, reared once, and darted off at a gallop. Where? To Apia? To Honolulu? He had 6000 miles of tropical belt to disport himself in, and I did not hear the precise address. A snorting pony snatched him into Ewigkeit in the twinkling of an eye, and I never saw him again; and, whats more, I dont know of anybody that ever had a glimpse of him after he departed from my knowledge sitting inside a ramshackle little gharry that fled round the corner in a white smother of dust. He departed, disappeared, vanished, absconded; and absurdly enough it looked as though he had taken that gharry with him, for never again did I come across a sorrel pony with a slit ear and a lackadaisical Tamil driver afflicted by a sore foot. The Pacific is indeed big; but whether he found a place for a display of his talents in it or not, the fact remains he had flown into space like a witch on a broom-stick. The little chap with his arm in a sling started to run after the carriage, bleating, Captain! I say, Captain! I sa-a-ay! but after a few steps stopped short, hung his head, and walked back slowly. At the sharp rattle of the wheels the young fellow spun round where he stood. He made no other movement, no gesture, no sign, and remained facing in the new direction after the gharry had swung out of sight.All this happened in much less time than it takes to tell, since I am trying to interpret for you into slow speech the instantaneous effect of visual impressions. Next moment the half-caste clerk, sent by Archie to look a little after the poor castaways of the Patna, came upon the scene. He ran out eager and bareheaded, looking right and left, and very full of his mission. It was doomed to be a failure as far as the principal person was concerned, but he approached the others with fussy importance, and, almost immediately, found himself involved in a violent altercation with the chap that carried his arm in a sling, and who turned out to be extremely anxious for a row. He wasnt going to be ordered about not he, bgosh. He wouldnt be terrified with a pack of lies by a cocky half-bred little quill-driver. He was not going to be bullied by no object of that sort, if the story were true ever so! He bawled his wish, his desire, his determination to go to bed. If you werent a God-forsaken Portuguee, I heard him yell, you would know that the hospital is the right place for me. He pushed the fist of his sound arm under the others nose; a crowd began to collect; the half-caste, flustered, but doing his best to appear dignified, tried to explain his intentions. I went away without waiting to see the end.But it so happened that I had a man in the hospital at the time, and going there to see about him the day before the opening of the Inquiry, I saw in the white mens ward that little chap tossing on his back, with his arm in splints, and quite light-headed. To my great surprise the other one, the long individual with drooping white moustache, had also found his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking away during the quarrel, in a half prance, half shuffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. He was no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his distress was able to make tracks straight for Marianis billiard-room and grog-shop near the bazaar. That unspeakable vagabond, Mariani, who had known the man and had ministered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner of speaking, before him, and shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamous hovel. It appears he was under some hazy apprehension as to his personal safety, and wished to be concealed. However, Mariani told me a long time after when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the price of some cigars that he would have done more for him without asking any questions, from gratitude for some unholy favour received very many years ago as far as I could make out. He thumped twice his brawny chest, rolled enormous black-and-white eyes glistening with tears： Antonio never forget Antonio never forget! What was the precise nature of the immoral obligation I never learned, but be it what it may, he had every facility given him to remain under lock and key, with a chair, a table, a mattress in a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irrational state of funk, and keeping up his pecker with such tonics as Mariani dispensed. This lasted till the evening of the third day, when, after letting out a few horrible screams, he found himself compelled to seek safety in flight from a legion of centipedes. He burst the door open, made one leap for dear life down the crazy little stairway, landed bodily on Marianis stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbage-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him off to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his bed he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I began to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I cant explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of mans creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than the certitude of death the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; its the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness made it a thing of mystery and terror like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth in its day had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of doubt. I must have been pretty desperate too, for, without loss of time, after a few indifferent and friendly sentences which he answered with languid readiness, just as any decent sick man would do, I produced the word Patna wrapped up in a delicate question as in a wisp of floss silk. I was delicate selfishly; I did not want to startle him; I had no solicitude for him; I was not furious with him and sorry for him： his experience was of no importance, his redemption would have had no point for me. He had grown old in minor iniquities, and could no longer inspire aversion or pity. He repeated Patna? interrogatively, seemed to make a short effort of memory, and said： Quite right. I am an old stager out here. I saw her go down. I made ready to vent my indignation at such a stupid lie, when he added smoothly, She was full of reptiles.This made me pause. What did he mean? The unsteady phantom of terror behind his glassy eyes seemed to stand still and look into mine wistfully. They turned me out of my bunk in the middle watch to look at her sinking, he pursued in a reflective tone. His voice sounded alarmingly strong all at once. I was sorry for my folly. There was no snowy-winged coif of a nursing sister to be seen flitting in the perspective of the ward; but away in the middle of a long row of empty iron bedsteads an accident case from some ship in the Roads sat up brown and gaunt with a white bandage set rakishly on the forehead. Suddenly my interesting invalid shot out an arm thin like a tentacle and clawed my shoulder. Only my eyes were good enough to see. I am famous for my eyesight. Thats why they called me, I expect. None of them was quick enough to see her go, but they saw that she was gone right enough, and sang out together like this. .?.?. A wolfish howl searched the very recesses of my soul. Oh! make im dry up, whined the accident case irritably. You dont believe me, I suppose, went on the other, with an air of ineffable conceit. I tell you there are no such eyes as mine this side of the Persian Gulf. Look under the bed.Of course I stooped instantly. I defy anybody not to have done so. What can you see? he asked. Nothing, I said, feeling awfully ashamed of myself. He scrutinised my face with wild and withering contempt. Just so, he said, but if I were to look I could see theres no eyes like mine, I tell you. Again he clawed, pulling at me downwards in his eagerness to relieve himself by a confidential communication. Millions of pink toads. Theres no eyes like mine. Millions of pink toads. Its worse than seeing a ship sink. I could look at sinking ships and smoke my pipe all day long. Why dont they give me back my pipe? I would get a smoke while I watched these toads. The ship was full of them. Theyve got to be watched, you know. He winked facetiously. The perspiration dripped on him off my head, my drill coat clung to my wet back： the afternoon breeze swept impetuously over the row of bedsteads, the stiff folds of curtains stirred perpendicularly, rattling on brass rods, the covers of empty beds blew about noiselessly near the bare floor all along the line, and I shivered to the very marrow. The soft wind of the tropics played in that naked ward as bleak as a winters gale in an old barn at home. Dont you let him start his hollering, mister, hailed from afar the accident case in a distressed angry shout that came ringing between the walls like a quavering call down a tunnel. The clawing hand hauled at my shoulder; he leered at me knowingly. The ship was full of them, you know, and we had to clear out on the strict Q.T., he whispered with extreme rapidity. All pink. All pink as big as mastiffs, with an eye on the top of the head and claws all round their ugly mouths. Ough! Ough! Quick jerks as of galvanic shocks disclosed under the flat coverlet the outlines of meagre and agitated legs; he let go my shoulder and reached after something in the air; his body trembled tensely like a released harp-string; and while I looked down, the spectral horror in him broke through his glassy gaze. Instantly his face of an old soldier, with its noble and calm outlines, became decomposed before my eyes by the corruption of stealthy cunning, of an abominable caution and of desperate fear. He restrained a cry Ssh! what are they doing now down there? he asked, pointing to the floor with fantastic precautions of voice and gesture, whose meaning, borne upon my mind in a lurid flash, made me very sick of my cleverness. They are all asleep, I answered, watching him narrowly. That was it. Thats what he wanted to hear; these were the exact words that could calm him. He drew a long breath. Ssh! Quiet, steady. I am an old stager out here. I know them brutes. Bash in the head of the first that stirs. Theres too many of them, and she wont swim more than ten minutes. He panted again. Hurry up, he yelled suddenly, and went on in a steady scream： They are all awake millions of them. They are trampling on me! Wait! Oh, wait! Ill smash them in heaps like flies. Wait for me! Help! H-e-elp! An interminable and sustained howl completed my discomfiture. I saw in the distance the accident case raise deplorably both his hands to his bandaged head; a dresser, aproned to the chin showed himself in the vista of the ward, as if seen in the small end of a telescope. I confessed myself fairly routed, and without more ado, stepping out through one of the long windows, escaped into the outside gallery. The howl pursued me like a vengeance. I turned into a deserted landing, and suddenly all became very still and quiet around me, and I descended the bare and shiny staircase in a silence that enabled me to compose my distracted thoughts. Down below I met one of the resident surgeons who was crossing the courtyard and stopped me. Been to see your man, Captain? I think we may let him go to-morrow. These fools have no notion of taking care of themselves, though. I say, weve got the chief engineer of that pilgrim ship here. A curious case. D.T.s of the worst kind. He has been drinking hard in that Greeks or Italians grog-shop for three days. What can you expect? Four bottles of that kind of brandy a day, I am told. Wonderful, if true. Sheeted with boiler-iron inside I should think. The head, ah! the head, of course, gone, but the curious part is theres some sort of method in his raving. I am trying to find out. Most unusual that thread of logic in such a delirium. Traditionally he ought to see snakes, but he doesnt. Good old traditions at a discount nowadays. Eh! His er visions are batrachian. Ha! ha! No, seriously, I never remember being so interested in a case of jim-jams before. He ought to be dead, dont you know, after such a festive experiment. Oh! he is a tough object. Four-and-twenty years of the tropics too. You ought really to take a peep at him. Noble-looking old boozer. Most extraordinary man I ever met medically, of course. Wont you?I had been all along exhibiting the usual polite signs of interest, but now assuming an air of regret I murmured of want of time, and shook hands in a hurry. I say, he cried after me; he cant attend that inquiry. Is his evidence material, you think?Not in the least, I called back from the gateway.
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LordJim
Chapter5
34
33
Chapter9
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