Lord Jim

by Joseph Conrad

  Marlow sat up abruptly and flung away his cheroot with force. It made a darting red trail like a toy rocket fired through the drapery of creepers. Nobody stirred.

  “Hey, what do you think of it?” he cried with sudden animation. “Wasn't he true to himself, wasn't he? His saved life was over for want of ground under his feet, for want of sights for his eyes, for want of voices in his ears. Annihilation—hey! And all the time it was only a clouded sky, a sea that did not break, the air that did not stir. Only a night; only a silence.

  “It lasted for a while, and then they were suddenly and unanimously moved to make a noise over their escape. ‘I knew from the first she would go.’ ‘Not a minute too soon.’ ‘A narrow squeak, b'gosh!’ He said nothing, but the breeze that had dropped came back, a gentle draught freshened steadily, and the sea joined its murmuring voice to this talkative reaction succeeding the dumb moments of awe. She was gone! She was gone! Not a doubt of it. Nobody could have helped. They repeated the same words over and over again as though they couldn't stop themselves. Never doubted she would go. The lights were gone. No mistake. The lights were gone. Couldn't expect anything else. She had to go…. He noticed that they talked as though they had left behind them nothing but an empty ship. They concluded she would not have been long when she once started. It seemed to cause them some sort of satisfaction. They assured each other that she couldn't have been long about it—‘Just shot down like a flat-iron.’ The chief engineer declared that the mast-head light at the moment of sinking seemed to drop ‘like a lighted match you throw down.’ At this the second laughed hysterically. ‘I am g-g-glad, I am gla-a-a-d.’ His teeth went on ‘like an electric rattle,’ said Jim, ‘and all at once he began to cry. He wept and blubbered like a child, catching his breath and sobbing “Oh dear! oh dear! oh dear!” He would be quiet for a while and start suddenly, “Oh, my poor arm! oh, my poor a-a-a-arm!” I felt I could knock him down. Some of them sat in the stern-sheets. I could just make out their shapes. Voices came to me, mumble, mumble, grunt, grunt. All this seemed very hard to bear. I was cold too. And I could do nothing. I thought that if I moved I would have to go over the side and—…

  “His hand groped stealthily, came in contact with a liqueur-glass, and was withdrawn suddenly as if it had touched a red-hot coal. I pushed the bottle slightly. ‘Won't you have some more?’ I asked. He looked at me angrily. ‘Don't you think I can tell you what there is to tell without screwing myself up?’ he asked. The squad of globe-trotters had gone to bed. We were alone but for a vague white form erect in the shadow, that, being looked at, cringed forward, hesitated, backed away silently. It was getting late, but I did not hurry my guest.

  “In the midst of his forlorn state he heard his companions begin to abuse some one. ‘What kept you from jumping, you lunatic?’ said a scolding voice. The chief engineer left the stern-sheets, and could be heard clambering forward as if with hostile intentions against ‘the greatest idiot that ever was.’ The skipper shouted with rasping effort offensive epithets from where he sat at the oar. He lifted his head at that uproar, and heard the name ‘George,’ while a hand in the dark struck him on the breast. ‘What have you got to say for yourself, you fool?’ queried somebody, with a sort of virtuous fury. ‘They were after me,’ he said. ‘They were abusing me—abusing me… by the name of George.’

  “He paused to stare, tried to smile, turned his eyes away and went on. ‘That little second puts his head right under my nose, “Why, it's that blasted mate!” “What!” howls the skipper from the other end of the boat. “No!” shrieks the chief. And he too stooped to look at my face.’

  “The wind had left the boat suddenly. The rain began to fall again, and the soft, uninterrupted, a little mysterious sound with which the sea receives a shower arose on all sides in the night. ‘They were too taken aback to say anything more at first,’ he narrated steadily, ‘and what could I have to say to them?’ He faltered for a moment, and made an effort to go on. ‘They called me horrible names.’ His voice, sinking to a whisper, now and then would leap up suddenly, hardened by the passion of scorn, as though he had been talking of secret abominations. ‘Never mind what they called me,’ he said grimly. ‘I could hear hate in their voices. A good thing too. They could not forgive me for being in that boat. They hated it. It made them mad….’ He laughed short…. ‘But it kept me from—Look! I was sitting with my arms crossed, on the gunwale!…’ He perched himself smartly on the edge of the table and crossed his arms…. ‘Like this—see? One little tilt backwards and I would have been gone—after the others. One little tilt—the least bit—the least bit.’ He frowned, and tapping his forehead with the tip of his middle finger, ‘It was there all the time,’ he said impressively. ‘All the time—that notion. And the rain—cold, thick, cold as melted snow—colder—on my thin cotton clothes—I'll never be so cold again in my life, I know. And the sky was black too—all black. Not a star, not a light anywhere. Nothing outside that confounded boat and those two yapping before me like a couple of mean mongrels at a tree'd thief. Yap! yap! What you doing here? You're a fine sort! Too much of a bloomin’ gentleman to put his hand to it. Come out of your trance, did you? To sneak in? Did you? Yap! yap! You ain't fit to live! Yap! yap! Two of them together trying to out-bark each other. The other would bay from the stern through the rain—couldn't see him—couldn't make out—some of his filthy jargon. Yap! yap! Bow-ow-ow-ow-ow! Yap! yap! It was sweet to hear them; it kept me alive—I tell you. It has saved my life. At it they went, as if trying to drive me overboard with the noise!… I wonder you had pluck enough to jump. You ain't wanted here. If I had known who it was, I would have tipped you over—you skunk. What have you done with the other? Where did you get the pluck to jump—you coward? What's to prevent us three from firing you overboard?… They were out of breath; the shower passed away upon the sea. Then nothing. There was nothing round the boat, not even a sound. Wanted to see me overboard, did they? Upon my soul! I think they would have had their wish if they had only kept quiet. Fire me overboard! Would they? “Try,” I said. “I would for twopence.” “Too good for you,” they screeched together. It was so dark that it was only when one or the other of them moved that I was quite sure of seeing him. By heavens! I only wish they had tried.’

  “I couldn't help exclaiming, ‘What an extraordinary affair!’

  “‘Not bad—eh?’ he said, as if in some sort astounded. ‘They pretended to think I had done away with that donkey-man for some reason or other. Why should I? And how the devil was I to know? Didn't I get somehow into that boat? into that boat—I…’ The muscles round his lips contracted into an unconscious grimace that tore through the mask of his usual expression—something violent, short-lived and illuminating like a twist of lightning that admits the eye for an instant into the secret convolutions of a cloud. ‘I did. I was plainly there with them—wasn't I? Isn't it awful a man should be driven to do a thing like that—and be responsible? What did I know about their George they were howling after? I remembered I had seen him curled up on the deck. “Murdering coward!” the chief kept on calling me. He didn't seem able to remember any other two words. I didn't care, only his noise began to worry me. “Shut up,” I said. At that he collected himself for a confounded screech. “You killed him. You killed him.” “No,” I shouted, “but I will kill you directly.” I jumped up, and he fell backwards over a thwart with an awful loud thump. I don't know why. Too dark. Tried to step back, I suppose. I stood still facing aft, and the wretched little second began to whine, “You ain't going to hit a chap with a broken arm—and you call yourself a gentleman, too.” I heard a heavy tramp—one—two—and wheezy grunting. The other beast was coming at me, clattering his oar over the stern. I saw him moving, big, big—as you see a man in a mist, in a dream. “Come on,” I cried. I would have tumbled him over like a bale of shakings. He stopped, muttered to himself, and went back. Perhaps he had heard the wind. I didn't. It was the last heavy gust we had. He went back to his oar. I was sorry. I would ha
ve tried to—to…’

  “He opened and closed his curved fingers, and his hands had an eager and cruel flutter. ‘Steady, steady,’ I murmured.

  “‘Eh? What? I am not excited,’ he remonstrated, awfully hurt, and with a convulsive jerk of his elbow knocked over the cognac-bottle. I started forward, scraping my chair. He bounced off the table as if a mine had been exploded behind his back, and half turned before he alighted, crouching on his feet to show me a startled pair of eyes and a face white about the nostrils. A look of intense annoyance succeeded. ‘Awfully sorry. How clumsy of me!’ he mumbled, very vexed, while the pungent odour of spilt alcohol enveloped us suddenly with an atmosphere of a low drinking-bout in the cool, pure darkness of the night. The lights had been put out in the dining-hall; our candle glimmered solitary in the long gallery, and the columns had turned black from pediment to capital. On the vivid stars the high corner of the harbour office stood out distinct across the Esplanade, as though the sombre pile had glided nearer to see and hear.

  “He assumed an air of indifference.

  “‘I daresay I am less calm now than I was then. I was ready for anything. These were trifles….’

  “‘You had a lively time of it in that boat,’ I remarked.

  “‘I was ready,’ he repeated. ‘After the ship's lights had gone, anything might have happened in that boat—anything in the world—and the world no wiser. I felt this, and I was pleased. It was just dark enough too. We were like men walled up quick1 in a roomy grave. No concern with anything on earth. Nobody to pass an opinion. Nothing mattered.’ For the third time during this conversation he laughed harshly, but there was no one about to suspect him of being only drunk. ‘No fear, no law, no sounds, no eyes—not even our own, till—till sunrise at least.’

  “I was struck by the suggestive truth of his words. There is something peculiar in a small boat upon the wide sea. Over the lives borne from under the shadow of death2 there seems to fall the shadow of madness. When your ship fails you, your whole world seems to fail you; the world that made you, restrained you, taken care of you. It is as if the souls of men floating on an abyss and in touch with immensity had been set free for any excess of heroism, absurdity, or abomination. Of course, as with belief, thought, love, hate, conviction, or even the visual aspect of material things, there are as many shipwrecks as there are men, and in this one there was something abject which made the isolation more complete—there was a villainy of circumstances that cut these men off more completely from the rest of mankind, whose ideal of conduct had never undergone the trial of a fiendish and appalling joke. They were exasperated with him for being a half-hearted shirker: he focussed on them his hate of the whole thing; he would have liked to take a signal revenge for the abhorrent opportunity they had put in his way. Trust a boat on the high seas to bring out the Irrational that lurks at the bottom of every thought, sentiment, sensation, emotion. It was part of the burlesque meanness pervading that particular disaster at sea that they did not come to blows. It was all threats, all a terribly effective feint, a sham from beginning to end, planned by the tremendous disdain of the Dark Powers whose real terrors, always on the verge of triumph, are perpetually foiled by the steadfastness of men. I asked, after waiting for a while, ‘Well, what happened?’ A futile question. I knew too much already to hope for the grace of a single uplifting touch, for the favour of hinted madness, of shadowed horror. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘I meant business, but they meant noise only. Nothing happened.’

  “And the rising sun found him just as he had jumped up first in the bows of the boat. What a persistence of readiness! He had been holding the tiller in his hand, too, all the night. They had dropped the rudder overboard while attempting to ship it, and I suppose the tiller got kicked forward somehow while they were rushing up and down that boat trying to do all sorts of things at once so as to get clear of the side. It was a long heavy piece of hard wood, and apparently he had been clutching it for six hours or so. If you don't call that being ready! Can you imagine him, silent and on his feet half the night, his face to the gusts of rain, staring at sombre forms, watchful of vague movements, straining his ears to catch rare low murmurs in the stern-sheets! Firmness of courage or effort of fear? What do you think? And the endurance is undeniable too. Six hours more or less on the defensive; six hours of alert immobility while the boat drove slowly or floated arrested according to the caprice of the wind; while the sea, calmed, slept at last; while the clouds passed above his head; while the sky from an immensity lustreless and black, diminished to a sombre and lustrous vault, scintillated with a greater brilliance, faded to the east, paled at the zenith; while the dark shapes blotting the low stars astern got outlines, relief; became shoulders, heads, faces, features—confronted him with dreary stares, had dishevelled hair, torn clothes, blinked red eyelids at the white dawn. ‘They looked as though they had been knocking about drunk in gutters for a week,’ he described graphically; and then he muttered something about the sunrise being of a kind that foretells a calm day. You know that sailor habit of referring to the weather in every connection. And on my side his few mumbled words were enough to make me see the lower limb of the sun clearing the line of the horizon, the tremble of a vast ripple running over all the visible expanse of the sea, as if the waters had shuddered, giving birth to the globe of light, while the last puff of the breeze would stir the air in a sigh of relief.

  “‘They sat in the stern shoulder to shoulder, with the skipper in the middle, like three dirty owls, and stared at me,’ I heard him say with an intention of hate that distilled a corrosive virtue into the commonplace words like a drop of powerful poison falling into a glass of water; but my thoughts dwelt upon that sunrise. I could imagine under the pellucid emptiness of the sky these four men imprisoned in the solitude of the sea, the lonely sun, regardless of the speck of life, ascending the clear curve of the heaven as if to gaze ardently from a greater height at his own splendour reflected in the still ocean. ‘They called out to me from aft,’ said Jim, ‘as though we had been chums together. I heard them. They were begging me to be sensible and drop that “blooming piece of wood.” Why would I carry on so? They hadn't done me any harm—had they? There had been no harm…. No harm!’

  “His face crimsoned as though he could not get rid of the air in his lungs.

  “‘No harm!’ he burst out. ‘I leave it to you. You can understand. Can't you? You see it—don't you? No harm! Good God! What more could they have done? Oh yes, I know very well—I jumped. Certainly. I jumped! I told you I jumped; but I tell you they were too much for any man. It was their doing as plainly as if they had reached up with a boat-hook and pulled me over. Can't you see it? You must see it. Come. Speak—straight out.’

  “His uneasy eyes fastened upon mine, questioned, begged, challenged, entreated. For the life of me I couldn't help murmuring, ‘You've been tried.’ ‘More than is fair,’ he caught up swiftly. ‘I wasn't given half a chance—with a gang like that. And now they were friendly—oh, so damnably friendly! Chums, shipmates. All in the same boat. Make the best of it. They hadn't meant anything. They didn't care a hang for George. George had gone back to his berth for something at the last moment and got caught. The man was a manifest fool. Very sad, of course…. Their eyes looked at me; their lips moved; they wagged their heads at the other end of the boat—three of them; they beckoned—to me. Why not? Hadn't I jumped? I said nothing. There are no words for the sort of things I wanted to say. If I had opened my lips just then I would have simply howled like an animal. I was asking myself when I would wake up. They urged me aloud to come aft and hear quietly what the skipper had to say. We were sure to be picked up before the evening—right in the track of all the Canal3 traffic; there was smoke to the north-west now.’

  “‘It gave me an awful shock to see this faint, faint blur, this low trail of brown mist through which you could see the boundary of sea and sky. I called out to them that I could hear very well where I was. The skipper started swearing, as hoarse
as a crow. He wasn't going to talk at the top of his voice for my accommodation. “Are you afraid they will hear you on shore?” I asked. He glared as if he would have liked to claw me to pieces. The chief engineer advised him to humour me. He said I wasn't right in my head yet. The other rose astern, like a thick pillar of flesh—and talked—talked….’