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

before some great and necessary task⁠—the influence of the moment upon my mental and emotional state. There are in all our lives such moments, such influences, coming from the outside, as it were, irresistible, incomprehensible⁠—as if brought about by the mysterious conjunctions of the planets. She owned, as I had put it to her, his heart. She had that and everything else⁠—if she could only believe it. What I had to tell her was that in the whole world there was no one who ever would need his heart, his mind, his hand. It was a common fate, and yet it seemed an awful thing to say of any man. She listened without a word, and her stillness now was like the protest of an invincible unbelief. What need she care for the world beyond the forests? I asked. From all the multitudes that peopled the vastness of that unknown there would come, I assured her, as long as he lived, neither a call nor a sign for him. Never. I was carried away. Never! Never! I remember with wonder the sort of dogged fierceness I displayed. I had the illusion of having got the spectre by the throat at last. Indeed the whole real thing has left behind the detailed and amazing impression of a dream. Why should she fear? She knew him to be strong, true, wise, brave. He was all that. Certainly. He was more. He was great⁠—invincible⁠—and the world did not want him, it had forgotten him, it would not even know him.

“I stopped; the silence over Patusan was profound, and the feeble dry sound of a paddle striking the side of a canoe somewhere in the middle of the river seemed to make it infinite. ‘Why?’ she murmured. I felt that sort of rage one feels during a hard tussle. The spectre was trying to slip out of my grasp. ‘Why?’ she repeated louder; ‘tell me!’ And as I remained confounded, she stamped with her foot like a spoilt child. ‘Why? Speak.’ ‘You want to know?’ I asked in a fury. ‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Because he is not good enough,’ I said brutally. During the moment’s pause I noticed the fire on the other shore blaze up, dilating the circle of its glow like an amazed stare, and contract suddenly to a red pinpoint. I only knew how close to me she had been when I felt the clutch of her fingers on my forearm. Without raising her voice, she threw into it an infinity of scathing contempt, bitterness, and despair.

“ ‘This is the very thing he said.⁠ ⁠… You lie!’

“The last two words she cried at me in the native dialect. ‘Hear me out!’ I entreated; she caught her breath tremulously, flung my arm away. ‘Nobody, nobody is good enough,’ I began with the greatest earnestness. I could hear the sobbing labour of her breath frightfully quickened. I hung my head. What was the use? Footsteps were approaching; I slipped away without another word⁠ ⁠…”

XXXIV

Marlow swung his legs out, got up quickly, and staggered a little, as though he had been set down after a rush through space. He leaned his back against the balustrade and faced a disordered array of long cane chairs. The bodies prone in them seemed startled out of their torpor by his movement. One or two sat up as if alarmed; here and there a cigar glowed yet; Marlow looked at them all with the eyes of a man returning from the excessive remoteness of a dream. A throat was cleared; a calm voice encouraged negligently, “Well.”

“Nothing,” said Marlow with a slight start. “He had told her⁠—that’s all. She did not believe him⁠—nothing more. As to myself, I do not know whether it be just, proper, decent for me to rejoice or to be sorry. For my part, I cannot say what I believed⁠—indeed I don’t know to this day, and never shall probably. But what did the poor devil believe himself? Truth shall prevail⁠—don’t you know Magna est veritas et⁠ ⁠… Yes, when it gets a chance. There is a law, no doubt⁠—and likewise a law regulates your luck in the throwing of dice. It is not Justice the servant of men, but accident, hazard, Fortune⁠—the ally of patient Time⁠—that holds an even and scrupulous balance. Both of us had said the very same thing. Did we both speak the truth⁠—or one of us did⁠—or neither?⁠ ⁠…”

Marlow paused, crossed his arms on his breast, and in a changed tone⁠—

“She said we lied. Poor soul! Well⁠—let’s leave it to Chance, whose ally is Time, that cannot be hurried, and whose enemy is Death, that will not wait. I had retreated⁠—a little cowed, I must own. I had tried a fall with fear itself and got thrown⁠—of course. I had only succeeded in adding to her anguish the hint of some mysterious collusion, of an inexplicable and incomprehensible conspiracy to keep her forever in the dark. And it had come easily, naturally, unavoidably, by his act, by her own act! It was as though I had been shown the working of the implacable destiny of which we are the victims⁠—and the tools. It was appalling to think of the girl whom I had left standing there motionless; Jim’s footsteps had a fateful sound as he tramped by, without seeing me, in his heavy laced boots. ‘What? No lights!’ he said in a loud, surprised voice. ‘What are you doing in the dark⁠—you two?’ Next moment he caught sight of her, I suppose. ‘Hallo, girl!’ he cried cheerily. ‘Hallo, boy!’ she answered at once, with amazing pluck.

“This was their usual greeting to each other, and the bit of swagger she would put into her rather high but sweet voice was very droll, pretty, and childlike. It delighted Jim greatly. This was the last occasion on which I heard them exchange this familiar hail, and it struck a chill into my heart. There was the high sweet voice, the