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

diminished to a sombre and lustrous vault, scintillated with a greater brilliance, faded to the east, paled at the zenith; while the dark shapes blotting the low stars astern got outlines, relief became shoulders, heads, faces, features⁠—confronted him with dreary stares, had dishevelled hair, torn clothes, blinked red eyelids at the white dawn. ‘They looked as though they had been knocking about drunk in gutters for a week,’ he described graphically; and then he muttered something about the sunrise being of a kind that foretells a calm day. You know that sailor habit of referring to the weather in every connection. And on my side his few mumbled words were enough to make me see the lower limb of the sun clearing the line of the horizon, the tremble of a vast ripple running over all the visible expanse of the sea, as if the waters had shuddered, giving birth to the globe of light, while the last puff of the breeze would stir the air in a sigh of relief.

“ ‘They sat in the stern shoulder to shoulder, with the skipper in the middle, like three dirty owls, and stared at me,’ I heard him say with an intention of hate that distilled a corrosive virtue into the commonplace words like a drop of powerful poison falling into a glass of water; but my thoughts dwelt upon that sunrise. I could imagine under the pellucid emptiness of the sky these four men imprisoned in the solitude of the sea, the lonely sun, regardless of the speck of life, ascending the clear curve of the heaven as if to gaze ardently from a greater height at his own splendour reflected in the still ocean. ‘They called out to me from aft,’ said Jim, ‘as though we had been chums together. I heard them. They were begging me to be sensible and drop that “blooming piece of wood.” Why would I carry on so? They hadn’t done me any harm⁠—had they? There had been no harm.⁠ ⁠… No harm!’

“His face crimsoned as though he could not get rid of the air in his lungs.

“ ‘No harm!’ he burst out. ‘I leave it to you. You can understand. Can’t you? You see it⁠—don’t you? No harm! Good God! What more could they have done? Oh yes, I know very well⁠—I jumped. Certainly. I jumped! I told you I jumped; but I tell you they were too much for any man. It was their doing as plainly as if they had reached up with a boat-hook and pulled me over. Can’t you see it? You must see it. Come. Speak⁠—straight out.’

“His uneasy eyes fastened upon mine, questioned, begged, challenged, entreated. For the life of me I couldn’t help murmuring, ‘You’ve been tried.’ ‘More than is fair,’ he caught up swiftly. ‘I wasn’t given half a chance⁠—with a gang like that. And now they were friendly⁠—oh, so damnably friendly! Chums, shipmates. All in the same boat. Make the best of it. They hadn’t meant anything. They didn’t care a hang for George. George had gone back to his berth for something at the last moment and got caught. The man was a manifest fool. Very sad, of course.⁠ ⁠… Their eyes looked at me; their lips moved; they wagged their heads at the other end of the boat⁠—three of them; they beckoned⁠—to me. Why not? Hadn’t I jumped? I said nothing. There are no words for the sort of things I wanted to say. If I had opened my lips just then I would have simply howled like an animal. I was asking myself when I would wake up. They urged me aloud to come aft and hear quietly what the skipper had to say. We were sure to be picked up before the evening⁠—right in the track of all the Canal traffic; there was smoke to the northwest now.

“ ‘It gave me an awful shock to see this faint, faint blur, this low trail of brown mist through which you could see the boundary of sea and sky. I called out to them that I could hear very well where I was. The skipper started swearing, as hoarse as a crow. He wasn’t going to talk at the top of his voice for my accommodation. “Are you afraid they will hear you on shore?” I asked. He glared as if he would have liked to claw me to pieces. The chief engineer advised him to humour me. He said I wasn’t right in my head yet. The other rose astern, like a thick pillar of flesh⁠—and talked⁠—talked.⁠ ⁠…’

“Jim remained thoughtful. ‘Well?’ I said. ‘What did I care what story they agreed to make up?’ he cried recklessly. ‘They could tell what they jolly well liked. It was their business. I knew the story. Nothing they could make people believe could alter it for me. I let him talk, argue⁠—talk, argue. He went on and on and on. Suddenly I felt my legs give way under me. I was sick, tired⁠—tired to death. I let fall the tiller, turned my back on them, and sat down on the foremost thwart. I had enough. They called to me to know if I understood⁠—wasn’t it true, every word of it? It was true, by God! after their fashion. I did not turn my head. I heard them palavering together. “The silly ass won’t say anything.” “Oh, he understands well enough.” “Let him be; he will be all right.” “What can he do?” What could I do? Weren’t we all in the same boat? I tried to be deaf. The smoke had disappeared to the northward. It was a dead calm. They had a drink from the water-breaker, and I drank too. Afterwards they made a great business of spreading the boat-sail over the gunwales. Would I keep a lookout? They crept under, out of my sight, thank God! I felt weary, weary, done up, as if I hadn’t had one hour’s sleep since the day I was born. I couldn’t see the