Chance

by Joseph Conrad

  It was then, Mr Powell told me, that he discovered in himself an already old-established liking for Captain Anthony. He also felt sorry for him without being able to discover the origins of that sympathy of which he had become so suddenly aware.

  Meantime Mr Smith, bending forward stiffly as though he had a hinged back, was speaking to his daughter.

  She was a child no longer. He wanted to know if she believed in—in hell. In eternal punishment?

  His peculiar voice, as if filtered through cotton-wool was inaudible on the other side of the deck. Poor Flora, taken very much unawares, made an inarticulate murmur, shook her head vaguely, and glanced in the direction of the pacing Anthony who was not looking her way. It was no use glancing in that direction. Of young Powell, leaning against the mizzen-mast and facing his captain she could only see the shoulder and part of a blue serge back.

  And the unworried, unaccented voice of her father went on tormenting her.

  “You see, you must understand. When I came out of jail it was with joy. That is, my soul was fairly torn in two—but anyway to see you happy—I had made up my mind to that. Once I could be sure that you were happy then of course I would have had no reason to care for life—strictly speaking—which is all right for an old man; though naturally—no reason to wish for death either. But this sort of life! What sense, what meaning, what value has it either for you or for me? It’s just sitting down to look at the death, that’s coming, coming. What else is it? I don’t know how you can put up with that. I don’t think you can stand it for long. Some day you will jump overboard.”

  Captain Anthony had stopped for a moment staring ahead from the break of the poop, and poor Flora sent at his back a look of despairing appeal which would have moved a heart of stone. But as though she had done nothing he did not stir in the least. She got out of the long chair and went towards the companion. Her father followed carrying a few small objects, a handbag, her handkerchief, a book. They went down together.

  It was only then that Captain Anthony turned, looked at the place they had vacated and resumed his tramping, but not his desultory conversation with his second officer. His nervous exasperation had grown so much that now very often he used to lose control of his voice. If he did not watch himself it would suddenly die in his throat. He had to make sure before he ventured on the simplest saying, an order, a remark on the wind, a simple good morning. That’s why his utterance was abrupt, his answers to people startlingly brusque and often not forthcoming at all.

  It happens to the most resolute of men to find himself at grips not only with unknown forces, but with a well-known force the real might of which he had not understood. Anthony had discovered that he was not the proud master but the chafing captive of his generosity. It rose in front of him like a wall which his respect for himself forbade him to scale. He said to himself: “Yes, I was a fool—but she has trusted me!” Trusted! A terrible word to any man somewhat exceptional in a world in which success has never been found in renunciation and good faith. And it must also be said, in order not to make Anthony more stupidly sublime than he was, that the behaviour of Flora kept him at a distance. The girl was afraid to add to the exasperation of her father. It was her unhappy lot to be made more wretched by the only affection which she could not suspect. She could not be angry with it, however, and out of deference for that exaggerated sentiment she hardly dared to look otherwise than by stealth at the man whose masterful compassion had carried her off. And quite unable to understand the extent of Anthony’s delicacy, she said to herself that “he didn’t care.” He probably was beginning at bottom to detest her—like the governess, like the maiden lady, like the German woman, like Mrs Fyne, like Mr Fyne—only he was extraordinary, he was generous. At the same time she had moments of irritation. He was violent, headstrong—perhaps stupid. Well, he had had his way.

  A man who has had his way is seldom happy, for generally he finds that the way does not lead very far on this earth of desires which can never be fully satisfied. Anthony had entered with extreme precipitation the enchanted gardens of Armida saying to himself “At last!” As to Armida, herself, he was not going to offer her any violence. But now he had discovered that all the enchantment was in Armida herself, in Armida’s smiles. This Armida did not smile. She existed, unapproachable, behind the blank wall of his renunciation. His force, fit for action, experienced the impatience, the indignation, almost the despair of his vitality arrested, bound, stilled, progressively worn down, frittered away by Time; by that force blind and insensible, which seems inert and yet uses one’s life up by its imperceptible action, dropping minute after minute on one’s living heart like drops of water wearing down a stone.

  He upbraided himself. What else could he have expected? He had rushed in like a ruffian; he had dragged the poor defenceless thing by the hair of her head, as it were, on board that ship. It was really atrocious. Nothing assured him that his person could be attractive to this or any other woman. And his proceedings were enough in themselves to make anyone odious. He must have been bereft of his senses. She must fatally detest and fear him. Nothing could make up for such brutality. And yet somehow he resented this very attitude which seemed to him completely justifiable. Surely he was not too monstrous (morally) to be looked at frankly sometimes. But no! She wouldn’t. Well, perhaps, some day... Only he was not going ever to attempt to beg for forgiveness. With the repulsion she felt for his person she would certainly misunderstand the most guarded words, the most careful advances. Never! Never!

  It would occur to Anthony at the end of such meditations that death was not an unfriendly visitor after all. No wonder then that even young Powell, his faculties having been put on the alert, began to think that there was something unusual about the man who had given him his chance in life. Yes, decidedly, his captain was “strange.” There was something wrong somewhere, he said to himself, never guessing that his young and candid eyes were in the presence of a passion profound, tyrannical and mortal, discovering its own existence, astounded at feeling itself helpless and dismayed at finding itself incurable.

  Powell had never before felt this mysterious uneasiness so strongly as on that evening when it had been his good fortune to make Mrs Anthony laugh a little by his artless prattle. Standing out of the way, he had watched his captain walk the weather-side of the poop, he took full cognizance of his liking for that inexplicably strange man and saw him swerve towards the companion and go down below with sympathetic if utterly uncomprehending eyes.

  Shortly afterwards, Mr Smith came up alone and manifested a desire for a little conversation. He, too, if not so mysterious as the captain, was not very comprehensible to Mr Powell’s uninformed candour. He often favoured thus the second officer. His talk alluded somewhat enigmatically and often without visible connection to Mr Powell’s friendliness towards himself and his daughter. “For I am well aware that we have no friends on board this ship, my dear young man,” he would add, “except yourself. Flora feels that too.”

  And Mr Powell, flattered and embarrassed, could but emit a vague murmur of protest. For the statement was true in a sense, though the fact was in itself insignificant. The feelings of the ship’s company could not possibly matter to the captain’s wife and to Mr Smith—her father. Why the latter should so often allude to it was what surprised our Mr Powell. This was by no means the first occasion. More like the twentieth rather. And in his weak voice, with his monotonous intonation, leaning over the rail and looking at the water the other continued this conversation, or rather his remarks, remarks of such a monstrous nature that Mr Powell had no option but to accept them for gruesome jesting.

  “For instance,” said Mr Smith, “that mate, Franklin, I believe he would just as soon see us both overboard as not.”

  “It’s not so bad as that,” laughed Mr Powell, feeling uncomfortable, because his mind did not accommodate itself easily to exaggeration of statement. “He isn’t a bad chap really,” he added, very conscious of Mr Franklin’s offensive manner o
f which instances were not far to seek. “He’s such a fool as to be jealous. He has been with the captain for years. It’s not for me to say, perhaps, but I think the captain has spoiled all that gang of old servants. They are like a lot of pet old dogs. Wouldn’t let anybody come near him if they could help it. I’ve never seen anything like it. And the second mate, I believe, was like that too.”

  “Well, he isn’t here, luckily. There would have been one more enemy,” said Mr Smith. “There’s enough of them without him. And you being here instead of him makes it much more pleasant for my daughter and myself. One feels there may be a friend in need. For really, for a woman all alone on board ship amongst a lot of unfriendly men...”

  “But Mrs Anthony is not alone,” exclaimed Powell. “There’s you, and there’s the...”

  Mr Smith interrupted him.

  “Nobody’s immortal. And there are times when one feels ashamed to live. Such an evening as this for instance.”

  It was a lovely evening; the colours of a splendid sunset had died out and the breath of a warm breeze seemed to have smoothed out the sea. Away to the south the sheet lightning was like the flashing of an enormous lantern hidden under the horizon. In order to change the conversation Mr Powell said:

  “Anyway no one can charge you with being a Jonah, Mr Smith. We have had a magnificent quick passage so far. The captain ought to be pleased. And I suppose you are not sorry either.”

  This diversion was not successful. Mr Smith emitted a sort of bitter chuckle and said: “Jonah! That’s the fellow that was thrown overboard by some sailors. It seems to me it’s very easy at sea to get rid of a person one does not like. The sea does not give up its dead as the earth does.”

  “You forget the whale, sir,” said young Powell.

  Mr Smith gave a start. “Eh? What whale? Oh! Jonah. I wasn’t thinking of Jonah. I was thinking of this passage which seems so quick to you. But only think what it is to me? It isn’t a life, going about the sea like this. And, for instance, if one were to fall ill, there isn’t a doctor to find out what’s the matter with one. It’s worrying. It makes me anxious at times.”

  “Is Mrs Anthony not feeling well?” asked Powell. But Mr Smith’s remark was not meant for Mrs Anthony. She was well. He himself was well. It was the captain’s health that did not seem quite satisfactory. Had Mr Powell noticed his appearance?

  Mr Powell didn’t know enough of the captain to judge. He couldn’t tell. But he observed thoughtfully that Mr Franklin had been saying the same thing. And Franklin had known the captain for years. The mate was quite worried about it.

  This intelligence startled Mr Smith considerably. “Does he think he is in danger of dying?” he exclaimed with an animation quite extraordinary for him, which horrified Mr Powell.

  “Heavens! Die! No! Don’t you alarm yourself, sir. I’ve never heard a word about danger from Mr Franklin.”

  “Well, well,” sighed Mr Smith and left the poop for the saloon rather abruptly.

  As a matter of fact Mr Franklin had been on deck for some considerable time. He had come to relieve young Powell; but seeing him engaged in talk with the “enemy”—with one of the “enemies” at least—had kept at a distance, which, the poop of the Ferndale being over seventy feet long, he had no difficulty in doing. Mr Powell saw him at the head of the ladder leaning on his elbow, melancholy and silent. “Oh! Here you are, sir.”

  “Here I am. Here I’ve been ever since six o’clock. Didn’t want to interrupt the pleasant conversation. If you like to put in half of your watch below jawing with a dear friend, that’s not my affair. Funny taste though.”

  “He isn’t a bad chap,” said the impartial Powell.

  The mate snorted angrily, tapping the deck with his foot; then: “Isn’t he? Well, give him my love when you come together again for another nice long yarn.”

  “I say, Mr Franklin, I wonder the captain don’t take offence at your manners.”

  “The captain. I wish to goodness he would start a row with me. Then I should know at least I am somebody on board. I’d welcome it, Mr Powell. I’d rejoice. And dam’ me I would talk back too till I roused him. He’s a shadow of himself. He walks about his ship like a ghost. He’s fading away right before our eyes. But of course you don’t see. You don’t care a hang. Why should you?”

  Mr Powell did not wait for more. He went down on the main deck. Without taking the mate’s jeremiads seriously he put them beside the words of Mr Smith. He had grown already attached to Captain Anthony. There was something not only attractive but compelling in the man. Only it is very difficult for youth to believe in the menace of death. Not in the fact itself, but in its proximity to a breathing, moving, talking, superior human being, showing no sign of disease. And Mr Powell thought that this talk was all nonsense. But his curiosity was awakened. There was something, and at any time some circumstance might occur ... No, he would never find out ... There was nothing to find out, most likely. Mr Powell went to his room where he tried to read a book he had already read a good many times. Presently a bell rang for the officers’ supper.

  Part 2—Chapter 6. A Moonless Night, thick with Stars above, very dark on the Water.

  In the mess-room Powell found Mr Franklin hacking at a piece of cold salt beef with a table knife. The mate, fiery in the face and rolling his eyes over that task, explained that the carver belonging to the mess-room could not be found. The steward, present also, complained savagely of the cook. The fellow got things into his galley and then lost them. Mr Franklin tried to pacify him with mournful firmness.

  “There, there! That will do. We who have been all these years together in the ship have other things to think about than quarrelling among ourselves.”

  Mr Powell thought with exasperation: “Here he goes again,” for this utterance had nothing cryptic for him. The steward having withdrawn morosely, he was not surprised to hear the mate strike the usual note. That morning the mizzen topsail-tie had carried away (probably a defective link) and something like forty feet of chain and wire-rope, mixed up with a few heavy iron blocks, had crashed down from aloft on the poop with a terrifying racket.

  “Did you notice the captain then, Mr Powell. Did you notice?”

  Powell confessed frankly that he was too scared himself when all that lot of gear came down on deck to notice anything.

  “The gin-block missed his head by an inch,” went on the mate impressively. “I wasn’t three feet from him. And what did he do? Did he shout, or jump, or even look aloft to see if the yard wasn’t coming down too about our ears in a dozen pieces? It’s a marvel it didn’t. No, he just stopped short—no wonder; he must have felt the wind of that iron gin-block on his face—looked down at it, there, lying close to his foot—and went on again. I believe he didn’t even blink. It isn’t natural. The man is stupefied.”

  He sighed ridiculously and Mr Powell had suppressed a grin, when the mate added as if he couldn’t contain himself:

  “He will be taking to drink next. Mark my words. That’s the next thing.”

  Mr Powell was disgusted.

  “You are so fond of the captain and yet you don’t seem to care what you say about him. I haven’t been with him for seven years, but I know he isn’t the sort of man that takes to drink. And then—why the devil should he?”

  “Why the devil, you ask. Devil—eh? Well, no man is safe from the devil—and that’s answer enough for you,” wheezed Mr Franklin not unkindly. “There was a time, a long time ago, when I nearly took to drink myself. What do you say to that?”

  Mr Powell expressed a polite incredulity. The thick, congested mate seemed on the point of bursting with despondency. “That was bad example though. I was young and fell into dangerous company, made a fool of myself—yes, as true as you see me sitting here. Drank to forget. Thought it a great dodge.”

  Powell looked at the grotesque Franklin with awakened interest and with that half-amused sympathy with which we receive unprovoked confidences from men with whom we have no sort of affin
ity. And at the same time he began to look upon him more seriously. Experience has its prestige. And the mate continued:

  “If it hadn’t been for the old lady, I would have gone to the devil. I remembered her in time. Nothing like having an old lady to look after to steady a chap and make him face things. But as bad luck would have it, Captain Anthony has no mother living, not a blessed soul belonging to him as far as I know. Oh, ay, I fancy he said once something to me of a sister. But she’s married. She don’t need him. Yes. In the old days he used to talk to me as if we had been brothers,” exaggerated the mate sentimentally. “‘Franklin,’—he would say—‘this ship is my nearest relation and she isn’t likely to turn against me. And I suppose you are the man I’ve known the longest in the world.’ That’s how he used to speak to me. Can I turn my back on him? He has turned his back on his ship; that’s what it has come to. He has no one now but his old Franklin. But what’s a fellow to do to put things back as they were and should be. Should be—I say!”

  His starting eyes had a terrible fixity. Mr Powell’s irresistible thought, “he resembles a boiled lobster in distress,” was followed by annoyance. “Good Lord,” he said, “you don’t mean to hint that Captain Anthony has fallen into bad company. What is it you want to save him from?”

  “I do mean it,” affirmed the mate, and the very absurdity of the statement made it impressive—because it seemed so absolutely audacious. “Well, you have a cheek,” said young Powell, feeling mentally helpless. “I have a notion the captain would half kill you if he were to know how you carry on.”

  “And welcome,” uttered the fervently devoted Franklin. “I am willing, if he would only clear the ship afterwards of that ... You are but a youngster and you may go and tell him what you like. Let him knock the stuffing out of his old Franklin first and think it over afterwards. Anything to pull him together. But of course you wouldn’t. You are all right. Only you don’t know that things are sometimes different from what they look. There are friendships that are no friendships, and marriages that are no marriages... Phoo! Likely to be right—wasn’t it? Never a hint to me. I go off on leave and when I come back, there it is—all over, settled! Not a word beforehand. No warning. If only: ‘What do you think of it, Franklin?’—or anything of the sort. And that’s a man who hardly ever did anything without asking my advice. Why! He couldn’t take over a new coat from the tailor without ... first thing, directly the fellow came on board with some new clothes, whether in London or in China, it would be: ‘Pass the word along there for Mr Franklin. Mr Franklin wanted in the cabin.’ In I would go. ‘Just look at my back, Franklin. Fits all right, doesn’t it?’ And I would say: ‘First-rate, sir,’ or whatever was the truth of it. That or anything else. Always the truth of it. Always. And well he knew it; and that’s why he dared not speak right out. Talking about workmen, alterations, cabins... Phoo! ... instead of a straightforward—‘Wish me joy, Mr Franklin!’ Yes, that was the way to let me know. God only knows what they are—perhaps she isn’t his daughter any more than she is... She doesn’t resemble that old fellow. Not a bit. Not a bit. It’s very awful. You may well open your mouth, young man. But for goodness’ sake, you who are mixed up with that lot, keep your eyes and ears open too in case—in case of—I don’t know what. Anything. One wonders what can happen here at sea! Nothing. Yet when a man is called a jailer behind his back.”