Lord Jim Joseph Conrad (epub ebook reader .txt) 📖

heard time and again the words, ‘Moderate provision⁠—suitable present.’ He seemed to be claiming value for something, and he even went the length of saying with some warmth that life was not worth having if a man were to be robbed of everything. I did not breathe a word, of course, but neither did I stop my ears. The gist of the affair, which became clear to me gradually, was in this, that he regarded himself as entitled to some money in exchange for the girl. He had brought her up. Somebody else’s child. Great trouble and pains⁠—old man now⁠—suitable present. If the honourable sir would say a word.⁠ ⁠… I stood still to look at him with curiosity, and fearful lest I should think him extortionate, I suppose, he hastily brought himself to make a concession. In consideration of a ‘suitable present’ given at once, he would, he declared, be willing to undertake the charge of the girl, ‘without any other provision⁠—when the time came for the gentleman to go home.’ His little yellow face, all crumpled as though it had been squeezed together, expressed the most anxious, eager avarice. His voice whined coaxingly, ‘No more trouble⁠—natural guardian⁠—a sum of money.⁠ ⁠…’

“I stood there and marvelled. That kind of thing, with him, was evidently a vocation. I discovered suddenly in his cringing attitude a sort of assurance, as though he had been all his life dealing in certitudes. He must have thought I was dispassionately considering his proposal, because he became as sweet as honey. ‘Every gentleman made a provision when the time came to go home,’ he began insinuatingly. I slammed the little gate. ‘In this case, Mr. Cornelius,’ I said, ‘the time will never come.’ He took a few seconds to gather this in. ‘What!’ he fairly squealed. ‘Why,’ I continued from my side of the gate, ‘haven’t you heard him say so himself? He will never go home.’ ‘Oh! this is too much,’ he shouted. He would not address me as ‘honoured sir’ any more. He was very still for a time, and then without a trace of humility began very low: ‘Never go⁠—ah! He⁠—he⁠—he comes here devil knows from where⁠—comes here⁠—devil knows why⁠—to trample on me till I die⁠—ah⁠—trample’ (he stamped softly with both feet), ‘trample like this⁠—nobody knows why⁠—till I die.⁠ ⁠…’ His voice became quite extinct; he was bothered by a little cough; he came up close to the fence and told me, dropping into a confidential and piteous tone, that he would not be trampled upon. ‘Patience⁠—patience,’ he muttered, striking his breast. I had done laughing at him, but unexpectedly he treated me to a wild cracked burst of it. ‘Ha! ha! ha! We shall see! We shall see! What! Steal from me? Steal from me everything! Everything! Everything!’ His head drooped on one shoulder, his hands were hanging before him lightly clasped. One would have thought he had cherished the girl with surpassing love, that his spirit had been crushed and his heart broken by the most cruel of spoliations. Suddenly he lifted his head and shot out an infamous word. ‘Like her mother⁠—she is like her deceitful mother. Exactly. In her face, too. In her face. The devil!’ He leaned his forehead against the fence, and in that position uttered threats and horrible blasphemies in Portuguese in very weak ejaculations, mingled with miserable plaints and groans, coming out with a heave of the shoulders as though he had been overtaken by a deadly fit of sickness. It was an inexpressibly grotesque and vile performance, and I hastened away. He tried to shout something after me. Some disparagement of Jim, I believe⁠—not too loud though, we were too near the house. All I heard distinctly was, ‘No more than a little child⁠—a little child.’ ”

XXXV

“But next morning, at the first bend of the river shutting off the houses of Patusan, all this dropped out of my sight bodily, with its colour, its design, and its meaning, like a picture created by fancy on a canvas, upon which, after long contemplation, you turn your back for the last time. It remains in the memory motionless, unfaded, with its life arrested, in an unchanging light. There are the ambitions, the fears, the hate, the hopes, and they remain in my mind just as I had seen them⁠—intense and as if forever suspended in their expression. I had turned away from the picture and was going back to the world where events move, men change, light flickers, life flows in a clear stream, no matter whether over mud or over stones. I wasn’t going to dive into it; I would have enough to do to keep my head above the surface. But as to what I was leaving behind, I cannot imagine any alteration. The immense and magnanimous Doramin and his little motherly witch of a wife, gazing together upon the land and nursing secretly their dreams of parental ambition; Tunku Allang, wizened and greatly perplexed; Dain Waris, intelligent and brave, with his faith in Jim, with his firm glance and his ironic friendliness; the girl, absorbed in her frightened, suspicious adoration; Tamb’ Itam, surly and faithful; Cornelius, leaning his forehead against the fence under the moonlight⁠—I am certain of them. They exist as if under an enchanter’s wand. But the figure round which all these are grouped⁠—that one lives, and I am not certain of him. No magician’s wand can immobilise him under my eyes. He is one of us.

“Jim, as I’ve told you, accompanied me on the first stage of my journey back to the world he had renounced, and the way at times seemed to lead through the very heart of untouched wilderness. The empty reaches sparkled under the high sun; between the high walls of vegetation the heat drowsed upon the water, and the boat, impelled vigorously, cut her way through the air that seemed to have settled dense and warm under the shelter of lofty trees.

“The shadow of