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

the impending separation had already put an immense space between us, and when we spoke it was with an effort, as if to force our low voices across a vast and increasing distance. The boat fairly flew; we sweltered side by side in the stagnant superheated air; the smell of mud, of mush, the primeval smell of fecund earth, seemed to sting our faces; till suddenly at a bend it was as if a great hand far away had lifted a heavy curtain, had flung open an immense portal. The light itself seemed to stir, the sky above our heads widened, a far-off murmur reached our ears, a freshness enveloped us, filled our lungs, quickened our thoughts, our blood, our regrets⁠—and, straight ahead, the forests sank down against the dark-blue ridge of the sea.

“I breathed deeply, I revelled in the vastness of the opened horizon, in the different atmosphere that seemed to vibrate with the toil of life, with the energy of an impeccable world. This sky and this sea were open to me. The girl was right⁠—there was a sign, a call in them⁠—something to which I responded with every fibre of my being. I let my eyes roam through space, like a man released from bonds who stretches his cramped limbs, runs, leaps, responds to the inspiring elation of freedom. ‘This is glorious!’ I cried, and then I looked at the sinner by my side. He sat with his head sunk on his breast and said ‘Yes,’ without raising his eyes, as if afraid to see writ large on the clear sky of the offing the reproach of his romantic conscience.

“I remember the smallest details of that afternoon. We landed on a bit of white beach. It was backed by a low cliff wooded on the brow, draped in creepers to the very foot. Below us the plain of the sea, of a serene and intense blue, stretched with a slight upward tilt to the threadlike horizon drawn at the height of our eyes. Great waves of glitter blew lightly along the pitted dark surface, as swift as feathers chased by the breeze. A chain of islands sat broken and massive facing the wide estuary, displayed in a sheet of pale glassy water reflecting faithfully the contour of the shore. High in the colourless sunshine a solitary bird, all black, hovered, dropping and soaring above the same spot with a slight rocking motion of the wings. A ragged, sooty bunch of flimsy mat hovels was perched over its own inverted image upon a crooked multitude of high piles the colour of ebony. A tiny black canoe put off from amongst them with two tiny men, all black, who toiled exceedingly, striking down at the pale water: and the canoe seemed to slide painfully on a mirror. This bunch of miserable hovels was the fishing village that boasted of the white lord’s especial protection, and the two men crossing over were the old headman and his son-in-law. They landed and walked up to us on the white sand, lean, dark-brown as if dried in smoke, with ashy patches on the skin of their naked shoulders and breasts. Their heads were bound in dirty but carefully folded headkerchiefs, and the old man began at once to state a complaint, voluble, stretching a lank arm, screwing up at Jim his old bleared eyes confidently. The Rajah’s people would not leave them alone; there had been some trouble about a lot of turtles’ eggs his people had collected on the islets there⁠—and leaning at arm’s-length upon his paddle, he pointed with a brown skinny hand over the sea. Jim listened for a time without looking up, and at last told him gently to wait. He would hear him by-and-by. They withdrew obediently to some little distance, and sat on their heels, with their paddles lying before them on the sand; the silvery gleams in their eyes followed our movements patiently; and the immensity of the outspread sea, the stillness of the coast, passing north and south beyond the limits of my vision, made up one colossal Presence watching us four dwarfs isolated on a strip of glistening sand.

“ ‘The trouble is,’ remarked Jim moodily, ‘that for generations these beggars of fishermen in that village there had been considered as the Rajah’s personal slaves⁠—and the old rip can’t get it into his head that⁠ ⁠…’

“He paused. ‘That you have changed all that,’ I said.

“ ‘Yes. I’ve changed all that,’ he muttered in a gloomy voice.

“ ‘You have had your opportunity,’ I pursued.

“ ‘Had I?’ he said. ‘Well, yes. I suppose so. Yes. I have got back my confidence in myself⁠—a good name⁠—yet sometimes I wish⁠ ⁠… No! I shall hold what I’ve got. Can’t expect anything more.’ He flung his arm out towards the sea. ‘Not out there anyhow.’ He stamped his foot upon the sand. ‘This is my limit, because nothing less will do.’

“We continued pacing the beach. ‘Yes, I’ve changed all that,’ he went on, with a sidelong glance at the two patient squatting fishermen; ‘but only try to think what it would be if I went away. Jove! can’t you see it? Hell loose. No! Tomorrow I shall go and take my chance of drinking that silly old Tunku Allang’s coffee, and I shall make no end of fuss over these rotten turtles’ eggs. No. I can’t say⁠—enough. Never. I must go on, go on forever holding up my end, to feel sure that nothing can touch me. I must stick to their belief in me to feel safe and to⁠—to’⁠ ⁠… He cast about for a word, seemed to look for it on the sea⁠ ⁠… ‘to keep in touch with’⁠ ⁠… His voice sank suddenly to a murmur⁠ ⁠… ‘with those whom, perhaps, I shall never see any more. With⁠—with⁠—you, for instance.’

“I was profoundly humbled by his words. ‘For God’s sake,’ I said, ‘don’t set me up, my dear fellow; just look to yourself.’ I felt a gratitude, an affection, for that straggler whose eyes had singled me