Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad (motivational novels for students TXT) đ
- Author: Joseph Conrad
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â âIt is always the unexpected that happens,â I said in a propitiatory tone. My obtuseness provoked him into a contemptuous âPshaw!â I suppose he meant that the unexpected couldnât touch him; nothing less than the unconceivable itself could get over his perfect state of preparation. He had been taken unawaresâand he whispered to himself a malediction upon the waters and the firmament, upon the ship, upon the men. Everything had betrayed him! He had been tricked into that sort of high-minded resignation which prevented him lifting as much as his little finger, while these others who had a very clear perception of the actual necessity were tumbling against each other and sweating desperately over that boat business. Something had gone wrong there at the last moment. It appears that in their flurry they had contrived in some mysterious way to get the sliding bolt of the foremost boat-chock jammed tight, and forthwith had gone out of the remnants of their minds over the deadly nature of that accident. It must have been a pretty sight, the fierce industry of these beggars toiling on a motionless ship that floated quietly in the silence of a world asleep, fighting against time for the freeing of that boat, grovelling on all-fours, standing up in despair, tugging, pushing, snarling at each other venomously, ready to kill, ready to weep, and only kept from flying at each otherâs throats by the fear of death that stood silent behind them like an inflexible and cold-eyed taskmaster. Oh yes! It must have been a pretty sight. He saw it all, he could talk about it with scorn and bitterness; he had a minute knowledge of it by means of some sixth sense, I conclude, because he swore to me he had remained apart without a glance at them and at the boatâwithout one single glance.
And I believe him. I should think he was too busy watching the threatening slant of the ship, the suspended menace discovered in the midst of the most perfect securityâfascinated by the sword hanging by a hair over his imaginative head.
âNothing in the world moved before his eyes, and he could depict to himself without hindrance the sudden swing upwards of the dark sky-line, the sudden tilt up of the vast plain of the sea, the swift still rise, the brutal fling, the grasp of the abyss, the struggle without hope, the starlight closing over his head for ever like the vault of a tombâthe revolt of his young lifeâthe black end. He could! By Jove! who couldnât? And you must remember he was a finished artist in that peculiar way, he was a gifted poor devil with the faculty of swift and forestalling vision. The sights it showed him had turned him into cold stone from the soles of his feet to the nape of his neck; but there was a hot dance of thoughts in his head, a dance of lame, blind, mute thoughtsâa whirl of awful cripples. Didnât I tell you he confessed himself before me as though I had the power to bind and to loose? He burrowed deep, deep, in the hope of my absolution, which would have been of no good to him. This was one of those cases which no solemn deception can palliate, where no man can help; where his very Maker seems to abandon a sinner to his own devices.
âHe stood on the starboard side of the bridge, as far as he could get from the struggle for the boat, which went on with the agitation of madness and the stealthiness of a conspiracy. The two Malays had meantime remained holding to the wheel. Just picture to yourselves the actors in that, thank God! unique, episode of the sea, four beside themselves with fierce and secret exertions, and three looking on in complete immobility, above the awnings covering the profound ignorance of hundreds of human beings, with their weariness, with their dreams, with their hopes, arrested, held by an invisible hand on the brink of annihilation. For that they were so, makes no doubt to me: given the state of the ship, this was the deadliest possible description of accident that could happen. These beggars by the boat had every reason to go distracted with funk.
Frankly, had I been there, I would not have given as much as a counterfeit farthing for the shipâs chance to keep above water to the end of each successive second. And still she floated! These sleeping pilgrims were destined to accomplish their whole pilgrimage to the bitterness of some other end. It was as if the Omnipotence whose mercy they confessed had needed their humble testimony on earth for a while longer, and had looked down to make a sign, âThou shalt not!â to the ocean. Their escape would trouble me as a prodigiously inexplicable event, did I not know how tough old iron can beâas tough sometimes as the spirit of some men we meet now and then, worn to a shadow and breasting the weight of life. Not the least wonder of these twenty minutes, to my mind, is the behaviour of the two helmsmen. They were amongst the native batch of all sorts brought over from Aden to give evidence at the inquiry. One of them, labouring under intense bashfulness, was very young, and with his smooth, yellow, cheery countenance looked even younger than he was. I remember perfectly Brierly asking him, through the interpreter, what he thought of it at the time, and the interpreter, after a short colloquy, turning to the court with an important airâ
â âHe says he thought nothing.â
âThe other, with patient blinking eyes, a blue cotton handkerchief, faded with much washing, bound with a smart twist over a lot of grey wisps, his face shrunk into grim hollows, his brown skin made darker by a mesh of wrinkles, explained that he had a knowledge of some evil thing befalling the ship, but there had been no order; he could not remember an order; why should he leave the helm? To some further questions he jerked back his spare shoulders, and declared it never came into his mind then that the white men were about to leave the ship through fear of death. He did not believe it now. There might have been secret reasons. He wagged his old chin knowingly. Aha! secret reasons. He was a man of great experience, and he wanted that white Tuan to knowâhe turned towards Brierly, who didnât raise his headâthat he had acquired a knowledge of many things by serving white men on the sea for a great number of yearsâand, suddenly, with shaky excitement he poured upon our spellbound attention a lot of queer-sounding names, names of dead-and-gone skippers, names of forgotten country ships, names of familiar and distorted sound, as if the hand of dumb time had been at work on them for ages. They stopped him at last. A silence fell upon the court,âa silence that remained unbroken for at least a minute, and passed gently into a deep murmur.
This episode was the sensation of the second dayâs proceedingsâaffecting all the audience, affecting everybody except Jim, who was sitting moodily at the end of the first bench, and never looked up at this extraordinary and damning witness that seemed possessed of some mysterious theory of defence.
âSo these two lascars stuck to the helm of that ship without steerage-way, where death would have found them if such had been their destiny.
The whites did not give them half a glance, had probably forgotten their existence. Assuredly Jim did not remember it. He remembered he could do nothing; he could do nothing, now he was alone. There was nothing to do but to sink with the ship. No use making a disturbance about it. Was there? He waited upstanding, without a sound, stiffened in the idea of some sort of heroic discretion. The first engineer ran cautiously across the bridge to tug at his sleeve.
â âCome and help! For Godâs sake, come and help!â
âHe ran back to the boat on the points of his toes, and returned directly to worry at his sleeve, begging and cursing at the same time.
â âI believe he would have kissed my hands,â said Jim savagely, âand, next moment, he starts foaming and whispering in my face, âIf I had the time I would like to crack your skull for you.â I pushed him away. Suddenly he caught hold of me round the neck. Damn him! I hit him. I hit out without looking. âWonât you save your own lifeâyou infernal coward?â he sobs. Coward! He called me an infernal coward! Ha! ha! ha! ha! He called meâha! ha! ha! âŠâ
âHe had thrown himself back and was shaking with laughter. I had never in my life heard anything so bitter as that noise. It fell like a blight on all the merriment about donkeys, pyramids, bazaars, or what not. Along the whole dim length of the gallery the voices dropped, the pale blotches of faces turned our way with one accord, and the silence became so profound that the clear tinkle of a teaspoon falling on the tesselated floor of the verandah rang out like a tiny and silvery scream.
â âYou mustnât laugh like this, with all these people about,â I remonstrated. âIt isnât nice for them, you know.â
âHe gave no sign of having heard at first, but after a while, with a stare that, missing me altogether, seemed to probe the heart of some awful vision, he muttered carelesslyââOh! theyâll think I am drunk.â
âAnd after that you would have thought from his appearance he would never make a sound again. Butâno fear! He could no more stop telling now than he could have stopped living by the mere exertion of his will.â
â âI was saying to myself, âSinkâcurse you! Sink!â â These were the words with which he began again. He wanted it over. He was severely left alone, and he formulated in his head this address to the ship in a tone of imprecation, while at the same time he enjoyed the privilege of witnessing scenesâas far as I can judgeâof low comedy. They were still at that bolt. The skipper was ordering, âGet under and try to liftâ; and the others naturally shirked. You understand that to be squeezed flat under the keel of a boat wasnât a desirable position to be caught in if the ship went down suddenly.
âWhy donât youâyou the strongest?â whined the little engineer.
âGott-for-dam! I am too thick,â spluttered the skipper in despair.
It was funny enough to make angels weep. They stood idle for a moment, and suddenly the chief engineer rushed again at Jim.
â âCome and help, man! Are you mad to throw your only chance away? Come and help, man! Man! Look thereâlook!â
âAnd at last Jim looked astern where the other pointed with maniacal insistence. He saw a silent black squall which had eaten up already one-third of the sky. You know how these squalls come up there about that time of the year. First you see a darkening of the horizonâno more; then a cloud rises opaque like a wall. A straight edge of vapour lined with sickly whitish gleams flies up from the southwest, swallowing the stars in whole constellations; its shadow flies over the waters, and confounds sea and sky into one abyss of obscurity.
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