第2章

"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 amongst our members or our associate members."In my wanderings about London from West to East and back again (Iwas 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,Ihope,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 piety 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 Iinterviewed 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 forbade 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 towards the centre of the town,and,all the street corners being placarded with the tricolour 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 Ihad been a Cook's tourists'interpreter,while our quarter-masters 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.Idon'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 '89and 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 realisation 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 '68was 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 Iwas too sick to care whether I did or not,and,always with "Almayer's Folly"amongst 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 for ever 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 Iwould 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 another 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 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 bringing 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 tomorrow,"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 furthest,the top-gallant 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 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 40south,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.Along period of bad weather set in and I had no thoughts left but for my duties,whilst 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 each 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 cross-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 railway station (that's in Berlin,you know),on my way to 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 a 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 patronised 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 south-east direction towards 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 major-domo,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 sheep-skin 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 moustachioed 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 bear-skin 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 amongst 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 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.