IN 36discussing the art of any novelist as distinct from the poet or essayist there are three special questions that we may ask—as to the Theme, as to the Form, as to the creation of Character.
It is possible to discuss these three questions in terms that can be applied1, in no fashion whatever, to the poem or the essay, although the novel may often more truly belong to the essay or the poem to the novel, as, for instance, The Ring and the Book and Aurora2 Leigh bear witness. All such questions of ultimate classes and divisions are vain, but these three divisions of Theme, Form and Character do cover many of the questions that are to be asked about any novelist simply in his position as novelist 37and nothing else. That Joseph Conrad is, in his art, most truly poet as well as novelist no reader of his work will deny. I wish, in this chapter, to consider him simply as a novelist—that is, as a narrator of the histories of certain human beings, with his attitude to those histories.
Concerning the form of the novel the English novelists, until the seventies and eighties of the nineteenth century, worried themselves but slightly. If they considered the matter they chuckled4 over their deliberate freedom, as did Sterne and Fielding. Scott considered story-telling a jolly business in which one was, also, happily able to make a fine living, but he never contemplated7 the matter with any respect. Jane Austen, who had as much form as any modern novelist, was quite unaware8 of her happy possession. The mid-Victorians gloriously abandoned themselves to the rich independence of shilling numbers, a fashion which forbade Form as completely as the manners of the time forbade frankness. A new period began at the end of the fifties; 38but no one in 1861 was aware that a novel called Evan Harrington was of any special importance; it made no more stir than did Almayer's Folly9 in the early nineties, although the wonderful Richard Feverel had already preceded it.
With the coming of George Meredith and Thomas Hardy10 the Form of the novel, springing straight from the shores of France, where Madame Bovary and Une Vie showed what might be done by taking trouble, grew into a question of considerable import. Robert Louis Stevenson showed how important it was to say things agreeably, even when you had not very much to say. Henry James showed that there was so much to say about everything that you could not possibly get to the end of it, and Rudyard Kipling showed that the great thing was to see things as they were. At the beginning of the nineties everyone was immensely busied over the way that things were done. The Yellow Book sprang into a bright existence, flamed, and died. "Art for Art's sake" was slain11 by the trial of Oscar Wilde in 1895.
39Mr Wells, in addition to fantastic romances, wrote stories about shop assistants and knew something about biology. The Fabian Society made socialism entertaining. Mr Bernard Shaw foreshadowed a new period and the Boer War completed an old one.
Of the whole question of Conrad's place in the history of the English novel and his influence upon it I wish to speak in a later chapter. I would simply say here that if he was borne in upon the wind of the French influence he was himself, in later years, one of the chief agents in its destruction, but, beginning to write in English as he did in the time of The Yellow Book, passing through all the realistic reaction that followed the collapse12 of aestheticism, seeing the old period washed away by the storm of the Boer War, he had, especially prepared for him, a new stage upon which to labour. The time and the season were ideal for the work that he had to do.
II
40The form in which Conrad has chosen to develop his narratives13 is the question which must always come first in any consideration of him as a novelist; the question of his form is the ground upon which he has been most frequently attacked.
His difficulties in this matter have all arisen, as I have already suggested, from his absorbing interest in life. Let us imagine, for an instant, an imaginary case. He has teen in some foreign port a quarrel between two seamen14. One has "knifed" the other, and the quarrel has been watched, with complete indifference15, by a young girl and a bibulous16 old wastrel17 who is obviously a relation both of hers and of the stricken seaman18. The author sees here a case for his art and, wishing to give us the matter with the greatest possible truth and accuracy, he begins, oratio recta, by the narration19 of a little barber whose shop is just over the spot where the quarrel took place and whose lodgers20 the old man and the girl are. He 41describes the little barber and is, at once, amazed by the interesting facts that he discovers about the man. Seen standing21 in his doorway22 he is the most ordinary little figure, but once investigate his case and you find a strange contrast between his melancholy23 romanticism and the flashing fanaticism24 of his love for the young girl who lodges25 with him. That leads one back, through many years, to the moment of his first meeting with the bibulous old man, and for a witness of that wo must hunt out a villainous old woman who keeps a drinking saloon in another part of the town. This old woman, now so drink-sodden and degraded, had once a history of her own. Once she was...
And so the matter continues. It is not so much a deliberate evocation26 of the most difficult of methods, this maimer of narration, as a poignant27 witness to Conrad's own breathless surprise at his discoveries. Mr Henry James, speaking of this enforced collection of oratorical28 witnesses, says: "It places Mr Conrad absolutely alone as a 42votary of the way to do a thing that shall make it undergo most doing," and his amazement29 at Conrad's patient pursuit of unneeded difficulties may seem to us the stranger if we consider that in What Maisie Knew and The Awkward Age he has practised almost precisely30 the same form himself. Indeed beside the intricate but masterly form of The Awkward Age the duplicate narration of Chance seems child's play. Mr Henry James makes the mistake of speaking as though Conrad had quite deliberately31 chosen the form of narration that was most difficult to him, simply for the fun of overcoming the difficulties, the truth being that he has chosen the easiest, the form of narration brought straight from the sea and the ships that he adored, the form of narration used by the Ancient Mariner32 and all the seamen before and alter him. Conrad must have his direct narrator, because that is the way in which stories in the past had generally come to him. He wishes to deny the effect of that direct and simple honesty that had always seemed so attractive to 43him. He must have it by word of mouth, because it is by word of mouth that he himself has always demanded it, and if one witness is not enough for the truth of it then must he have two or three.
Consider for a moment the form of three of his most important novels: Lord Jim, Nostromo and Chance. It is possible that Lord Jim was conceived originally as a sketch33 of character, derived34 by the author from one scene that was, in all probability, an actual reminiscence. Certainly, when the book is finished, one scene beyond all others remains35 with the reader; the scene of the inquiry36 into the loss of the Patna, or rather the vision of Jim and his appalling37 companions waiting outside for the inquiry to begin. Simply in the contemplation of these four men Conrad has his desired contrast; the skipper of the Patna: "He made me think of a trained baby elephant walking on hind-legs. He was extravagantly38 gorgeous too—got up in a. soiled sleeping-suit, bright green and deep orange vertical39 stripes, with a pair of ragged40 straw slippers41 44on his bare feet, and somebody's cast-off pith hat, very dirty and two sizes too small for him, tied up with a manilla rope-yarn on the top of his big head." There are also two other "no-account chaps with him"—a sallow faced mean little chap with his arm in a sling42, and a long individual in a blue flannel43 coat, as dry as a chip and no stouter44 than a broomstick, with drooping45 grey moustaches, who looked about him with an air of jaunty46 imbecility, and, with these three, Jim, "clean-limbed, clean-faced, firm on his feet, as promising47 a boy as the sun ever shone on." Here are these four, in the same box, condemned48 for ever by all right-thinking men. That boy in the same box as those obscene scoundrels! At once the artist has fastened on to his subject, it bristles49 with active, vital possibilities and discoveries. We, the observers, share the artist's thrill. We watch our author dart50 upon a subject with the excitement of adventurers discovering a gold mine. How much will it yield? How deep will it go? We are thrilled with the suspense51. 45Conrad, having discovered his subject, must, for the satisfaction of that honour which is his most deeply cherished virtue52, prove to us his authenticity53. "I was not there myself," he tells us, "but I can show you someone who was." He introduces us to a first-hand witness, Marlowe or another. "Now tell your story." He has at once the atmosphere in which he is happiest, and so, having his audience clustered about him, unlimited55 time at everyone's disposal, whiskies and cigars without stint56, he lets himself go. He is bothered now by no question but the thorough investigation57 of his discovery. What had Jim done that he should be in such a case? We must have the story of the loss of the Patna, that marvellous journey across the waters, all the world of the pilgrims, the obscene captain and Jim's fine, chivalrous58 soul. Marlowe is inexhaustible. He has so much to say and so many fine words in which to say it. At present, so absorbed are we, so successful is he, that we are completely held. The illusion is perfect. We come to the inquiry. 46One of the judges is Captain Brierley. "What! not know Captain Brierley! Ah! but I must tell you! Most extraordinary thing!"
The world grows around us; a world that can contain the captain of the Patna, Brierley and Jim at the same time! The subject before us seems now so rich that we are expecting to see it burst, at any moment, in the author's hands, but so long as that first visualised scene is the centre of the episode, so long as the experience hovers59 round that inquiry and the Esplanade outside it, we are held, breathless and believing. We believe even in the eloquent60 Marlowe. Then the moment passes. Every possible probe into its heart has been made. We are satisfied.
There follows then the sequel, and here at once the weakness of the method is apparent. The author having created his narrator must continue with him. Marlowe is there, untired, eager, waiting to begin again. But the trouble is that we are do longer assured now of the truth and 47reality of his story. He saw—we cannot for an instant doubt it—that group on the Esplanade; all that he could tell us about that we, breathlessly, awaited. But now we are uncertain whether he is not inventing a romantic sequel. He must go on—that is the truly terrible thing about Marlowe—and at the moment when we question his authenticity we are suspicious of his very existence, ready to be irritated by his flow of words demanding something more authentic54 than that voice that is now only dimly heard. The author himself perhaps feels this; he duplicates, he even trebles his narrators and with each fresh agent raises a fresh crop of facts, contrasts, halts and histories. That then is the peril61 of the method. Whilst we believe we are completely held, but let the authenticity waver for a moment and the danger of disaster is more excessive than with any other possible form of narration. Create your authority and we have at once someone at whom we may throw stones if we are not beguiled62, Marlowe has certainly been compelled to 48face, at moments in his career, an angry, irritated audience.
Nostromo is, for the reason that we never lose our confidence in the narrator, a triumphant63 vindication64 of these methods. That is not to deny that Nostromo is extremely contused in places, but it is a confusion that arises rather from Conrad's confidence in the reader's fore-knowledge of the facts than in a complication of narrations65. The narrations are sometimes complicated—old Captain Mitchell does not always achieve authenticity—but on the whole, the reader may be said to be puzzled, simply because he is told so much about some things and so little about others.
But this assurance of the author's that we must have already learnt the main facts of the case comes from his own convinced sense of the reality of it. This time he has no Marlowe. He was there himself. "Of course," he says to us, "you know all about that revolution in Sulaco, that revolution that the Goulds were mixed up with. Well, I happened to be there myself. I know all 49the people concerned, and the central figure was not Gould, nor Mitchell, nor Monyngham—no, it was a man about whom no one outside the republic was told a syllable66. I knew the man well.... He.. and there we all are."
The method is, in this case, as I have already said, completely successful. There may be confusions, there may be scenes concerning which we may be expected to be told much and are, in truth, told nothing at all, but these confusions and omissions67 do, in the end, only add to our conviction of the veracity68 of it. No one, after a faithful perusal69 of Nostromo, can possibly doubt of the existence of Sulaco, of the silver mine, of Nostromo and Decoud, of Mrs Gould, Antonio, the Viola girls, of old Viola, Hirsch, Monyngham, Gould, Sotillo, of the death of Viola's wife, of the expedition at night in the painter, of Decoud alone on the Isabels, of Hirsch's torture, of Captain Mitchell's watch—here are characters the most romantic in the world, scenes that would surely, in any other hands, be fantastic 50melodrama, and both characters and scenes are absolutely supported on the foundation of realistic truth. Not for a moment from the first page to the last do we consciously doubt the author's word.... Here the form of narration is vindicated71 because it is entirely72 convincing.
Not so with the third example, Chance. Here, as with Lord Jim, we may find one, visualised moment that stands for the whole book and as in the earlier work we look back and see the degraded officers of the Patna waiting with Jim on the Esplanade, so our glance back over Chance reveals to us that moment when the Fynes, from the security of their comfortable home, watch Flora73 de Barrel flying down the steps of her horrible Brighton house as though the Furies pursued her. That desperate flight is the key of the book. The moment of the chivalrous Captain Anthony's rescue of Flora from a world too villainous for her and too double-faced for him gives the book's theme, and never in all the stories that preceded Flora's has Conrad been so 51eager to afford us first-hand witnesses. We have, in the first place, the unquenchable Marlowe sitting, with fine phrases at his lips, in a riverside inn. To him enter Powell, who once served with Captain Anthony; to these two add the little Fynes; there surely you have enough to secure your alliance. But it is precisely the number of witnesses that frightens us. Marlowe, unaided, would have been enough for us, more than enough if we are to consider the author himself as a possible narrator. But not only does the number frighten us, it positively74 hides from us the figures of Captain Anthony and Flora de Barrel. Both the Knight75 and the Maiden—as the author names them—are retiring souls, and our hearts move in sympathy fin5 them as we contemplate6 their timid hesitancy before the voluble inquisitions of Marlowe, young Powell and the Fynes. Moreover, the intention of this method that it should secure realistic conviction for the most romantic episodes does not here achieve its purpose, as we have seen that it did in the first half of 52Lord Jim and the whole of Nostromo. We believe most emphatically in that first narration of young Powell's about his first chance. We believe in the first narration of Marlowe, although quite casually76 he talks like this: "I do not even think that there was in what he did a conscious and lofty confidence in himself, a particularly pronounced sense of power which leads men so often into impossible or equivocal situations." We believe in the horrible governess (a fiercely drawn77 figure). We believe in Marlowe's interview with Flora on the pavement outside Anthony's room.
We believe in the whole of the first half of the book, but even here we are conscious that we would prefer to be closer to the whole thing, that it would be pleasant to hear Flora and Anthony speak for themselves, that we resent, a little, Marlowe's intimacy78 which prevents, with patronising complaisance79, the intimacy that we, the readers, might have seemed. Nevertheless we are so far held, we are captured.
But when the second half of the book 53arrives we can be confident no longer. Here, as in Lord Jim, it is possible to feel that Conrad, having surprised, seized upon, mastered his original moment, did not know how to continue it. The true thing in Lord Jim is the affair of the Patna; the true thing in Chance is Captain Anthony's rescue of Flora after her disaster. But whereas in Lord Jim the sequel to Jim's cowardice80 has its own fine qualities of beauty and imagination, the sequel to Captain Anthony's rescue of Flora seems to one listener at any rate a pitiably unconvincing climax81 of huddled82 melodrama70. That chapter in Chance entitled A Moonless Night is, in the first half of it, surely the worst thing that Conrad ever wrote, save only that one early short story, The Return. The conclusion of Chance and certain tales in his volume, Within the Tides, make one wonder whether that alliance between romance and realism that he has hitherto so wonderfully maintained is not breaking down before the baleful strength of the former of these two qualities.
54It remains only to be said that when credence84 so entirely fails, as it must before the end of Chance, the form of narration in Oratio Recta is nothing less than maddening. Suddenly we do not believe in Marlowe, in Powell, in the Fynes: we do not believe even in Anthony and Flora. We are the angrier because earlier in the evening we were so completely taken in. It is as though we had given our money to a deserving cause and discovered a charlatan85.
I have described at length the form in which the themes of these books are developed, because it is the form that, here extensively, here quite unobtrusively, clothes all the novels and tales. We are caught and held by the skinny finger of the Ancient Mariner. When he has a true tale to tell us his veritable presence is an added zest86 to our pleasure. But, if his presence be not true...
III
If we turn to the themes that engage Joseph Conrad's attention we shall see that 55in almost every case his subjects are concerned with unequal combats—unequal to his own far-seeing vision, but never to the human souls engaged in them, and it is this consciousness of the blindness that renders men's honesty and heroism87 of so little account that gives occasion for his irony88.
He chooses, in almost every case, the most solid and unimaginative of human beings for his heroes, and it seems that it is these men alone whom he can admire. "If a human soul has vision he simply gives the thing up," we can hear him say. "He can see at once that the odds89 are too strong for him. But these simple souls, with their consciousness of the job before them and nothing else, with their placid90 sense of honour and of duty, upon them you may loosen all heaven's bolts and lightnings and they will not quail91." They command his pity, his reverence92, his tenderness, almost his love. But at the end, with an ironic93 shrug94 of his shoulders, he says: "You see. I told you so. He may even think he has won. We know better, you and I." 56The theme of Almayer's Folly is a struggle of a weak man against nature, of The Nigger of the Narcissus the struggle of many simple men against the presence of death, of Lord Jim, again, the struggle of a simple man against nature (here the man wins, but only, we feel, at the cost of truth). Nostromo, the conquest of a child of nature by the silver mine which stands over him, conscious of its ultimate victory, from the very first. Chance, the struggle of an absolutely simple and upright soul against the dishonesties of a world that he does not understand. Typhoon, the very epitome95 of Conrad's themes, is the struggle of M'Whirr against the storm (here again it is M'Whirr who apparently96 wins, but we can hear, in the very last line of the book, the storm's confident chuckle3 of ultimate victory). In Heart of Darkness the victory is to the forest. In The End of the Tether Captain Whalley, one of Conrad's finest figures, is beaten by the very loftiness of his character. The three tales in 'Twixt Land, and Sea are all themes of this kind—the struggle of simple, 57unimaginative men against forces too strong for them. In The Secret Agent Winnie Verloc, another simple character, finds life too much for her and commits suicide. In Under Western Eyes Razumov, the dreamer, is destroyed by a world that laughs at the pains and struggles of insignificant97 individuals.
Of Conrad's philosophy I must speak in another place: here it is enough to say that it is impossible to imagine him choosing as the character of a story jolly, independent souls who take life for what it gives them and leave defeat or victory to the stars.
Whatever Conrad's books are or are not, it may safely be said that they are never jolly, and his most devoted98 disciple99 would, in all probability, resent any suggestion of a lighter100 hand or a gentler affection, his art, nevertheless, is limited by this persistent101 brooding over the inequality of life's battle. His humour, often of a very fine kind, is always sinister102, because his choice of theme forbids light-heartedness.
Tom Jones and Tristram Shandy would 58have found Marlowe, Jim and Captain Anthony quite impossibly solemn company—but I do not deny that they might not have been something the better for a little of it.
I have already said that his characters are, for the most part, simple and unimaginative men, but that does not mean that they are so simple that there is nothing in them. The first thing of which one is sure in meeting a number of Conrad's characters is that they have existences and histories entirely independent of their introducer's kind offices. Conrad has met them, has talked to them, has come to know them, but we are sure not only that there is very much more that he could tell us about them if he had time and space, but that even when he had told us all that he knew he would only have touched on the fringe of their real histories.
One of the distinctions between the modern English novel and the mid-Victorian English novel is that modern characters have but little of the robust103 vitality104 of their 59predecessors; the figures in the novel of to-day fade so easily from the page that endeavours to keep them.
In the novels of Mr Henry James we feel at times that the characters fade before the motives105 attributed to them, in those of Mr Wells before an idea, a curse, or a remedy, in those of Mr Bennett before a creeping wilderness106 of important insignificances, in those of Mr Galsworthy before the oppression of social inequalities, in those of Mrs Wharton before the shadow of Mr Henry James, even in those of Mr Hardy before the omnipotence107 of an inevitable108 God whom, in spite of his inevitability109, Mr Hardy himself is arranging in the background; it may be claimed for the characters of Mr Conrad that they yield their solidity to no force, no power, not even to their author's own determination that they are doomed110, in the end, to defeat.
This is not for a moment to say that Joseph Conrad is a finer novelist than these others, but this quality he has beyond his contemporaries—namely, the assurance that 60his characters have their lives and adventures both before and after the especial cases that he is describing to us.
The Russian Tchekov has, in his plays, this gift supremely111, so that at the close of The Three Sisters or The Cherry Orchard112 we are left speculating deeply upon "what happened afterwards" to Gayef or Barbara, to Masha or Epikhadov; with Conrad's sea captains as with Tchekov's Russians we see at once that they are entirely independent of the incidents that we are told about them. This independence springs partly from the author's eager, almost na飗e curiosity. It is impossible for him to introduce us to any officer on his ship without whispering to us in an aside details about his life, his wife and family on shore. By so doing he forges an extra link in his chain of circumstantial evidence, but we do not feel that here he is deliberately serving his art—it is only that quality already mentioned, his own astonished delight at the things that he is discovering. We learn, for instance, about Captain M'Whirr that he wrote long letters home, 61beginning always with the words, "My darling Wife," and relating in minute detail each successive trip of the Nan-Shan. Mrs M'Whirr, we learn, was "a pretentious113 person with a scraggy neck and a disdainful manner, admittedly lady-like and in the neighbourhood considered as 'quite superior.' The only secret of her life was her abject114 terror of the time when her husband would come home to stay for good." Also in Typhoon there is the second mate "who never wrote any letters, did not seem to hope for news from anywhere; and though he had been heard once to mention West Hartlepool, it was with extreme bitterness, and only in connection with the extortionate charges of a boarding-house." How conscious we are of Jim's English country parsonage, of Captain Anthony's loneliness, of Marlowe's isolation115. By this simple thread of connection between the land and the ship the whole character stands, human and convincing, before us. Of the sailors on board the Narcissus there is not one about whom, after his landing, 62we are not curious. There is the skipper, whose wife comes on board, "A real lady, in a black dress and with a parasol."... "Very soon the captain, dressed very smartly and in a white shirt, went with her over the side. We didn't recognise him at all...." And Mr Baker116, the chief mate! Is not this little farewell enough to make us his friends for life?
"No one waited for him ashore117. Mother died; father and two brothers, Yarmouth fishermen, drowned together on the Dogger Bank; sister married and unfriendly. Quite a lady, married to the leading tailor of a little town, and its leading politician, who did not think his sailor brother in-law quite respectable enough for him. Quite a lady, quite a lady, he thought, sitting down for a moment's rest on the quarter-hatch. Time enough to go ashore and get a bite, and sup, and a bed somewhere. He didn't like to part with a ship. No one to think about then. The darkness of a misty118 evening fell, cold and damp, upon the deserted119 deck; and Mr Baker sat smoking, thinking of all the successive ships to whom through many 63long years he had given the best of a seaman's care. And never a command in sight. Not once!"
There are others—the abominable120 Donkin for instance. "Donkin entered. They discussed the account... Captain Allistoun said. 'I give you a bad discharge,' he said quietly. Donkin raised his voice: 'I don't want your bloomin' discharge—keep it. I'm goin' ter 'ave a job hashore.' He turned to us. 'No more bloomin' sea for me,' he said, aloud. All looked at him. He had better clothes, had an easy air, appeared more at home than any of us; he stared with assurance, enjoying the effect of his declaration."
In how many novels would Donkin's life have been limited by the part that he was required to play in the adventures of the Narcissus? As it is our interest in his progress has been satisfied by a prologue121 only. Or there is Charley, the boy of the crew—"As I came up I saw a red-faced, blowzy woman, in a grey shawl, and with dusty, 64fluffy hair, fall on Charley's neck. It was his mother. She slobbered over him:—'Oh, my boy! my boy!'—'Leggo me,' said Charley, 'leggo, mother!' I was passing him at the time, and over the untidy head of the blubbering woman he gave me a humorous smile and a glance ironic, courageous122, and profound, that seemed to put all my knowledge of life to shame. I nodded and passed on, but heard him say again, good-naturedly:—'If you leggo of me this minyt—ye shall 'ave a bob for a drink out of my pay.'"
But one passes from these men of the sea—from M'Whirr and Baker, from Lingard and Captain Whalley, from Captain Anthony and Jim, with a suspicion that the author will not convince us quite so readily with his men of the land—and that suspicion is never entirely dismissed. About such men as M'Whirr and Baker he can tell us nothing that we will not believe. He has such sympathy and understanding for them that they will, we are assured, deliver up to him their dearest secrets—those little details, 65M'Whirr's wife, Mr Baker's proud sister, Charley's mother, are their dearest secrets. But with the citizens of the other world—with Stein, Decoud, Gould, Verloc, Razumov, the sinister Nikita, the little Fynes, even the great Nostromo himself—we cannot be so confident, simply because their discoverer cannot yield them that same perfect sympathy.
His theory about these men is that they have, all of them, an id閑 fixe, that you must search for this patiently, honestly, unsparingly—having found it, the soul of the man is revealed to you. But is it? Is it not possible that Decoud or Verloc, feeling the probing finger, offer up instantly any id閑 fixe ready to hand because they wish to be left alone? Decoud himself, for instance—Decoud, the imaginative journalist in Nostromo, speculating with his ironic mind upon romantic features, at his heart, apparently cynical123 and reserved, the burning passion for the beautiful Antonia. He has yielded enough to suggest the truth, but the truth itself eludes124 us. With Verloc again 66we have a quite masterly presentation of the man as Conrad sees him. That first description of him is wonderful, both in its reality and its significance. "His eyes were naturally heavy, he had an air of having wallowed, fully83 dressed, all day on an unmade bed."
With many novelists that would be quite enough, that we should see the character as the author sees him, but because, in these histories, we have the convictions of the extension of the protagonists125' lives beyond the stated episodes, it is not enough. Because they have lives independent of the covers of the book we feel that there can be no end to the things that we should be told about them, and they must be true things.
Verloc, for instance, is attached from the first to his id閑 fixe—namely, that he should be able to retain, at all costs, his phlegmatic126 state of self-indulgence and should not be jockeyed out of it. At the first sign of threatened change he is terrified to his very soul. Conrad never, for an instant, allows him to leave this ground upon which he has 67placed him. We see the man tied to his rock of an id閑 fixe, but he has, nevertheless, we are assured, another life, other motives, other humours, other terrors. It is perhaps a direct tribute to the authors reserve power that we feel, at the book's close, that we should have been told so much more.
Even with the great Nostromo himself we are not satisfied as we are with Captain Whalley or Mr Kates. Nostromo is surely, as a picture, the moat romantically satisfying figure in the English novel since Scott, with the single exception of Thackeray's Beatrix—and here I am not forgetting Captain Silver, David Balfour, Catriona, nor, in our own immediate127 time, young Beauchamp or the hero of that amazing and so unjustly obscure fiction, The Shadow of a Titan. As a picture, Nostromo shines with a flaming colour, shines, as the whole novel shines, with a glow that is flung by the contrasted balance of its romance and realism. From that first vision of him as he rides slowly through the crowds, in his magnificent dress: "... his hat, a gay sombrero with 68a silver cord and tassels128. The bright colours of a Mexican scrape twisted on the mantle129, the enormous silver buttons on the embroidered130 leather jacket, the row of tiny silver buttons down the seam of the trousers, the snowy linen131, a silk sash with embroidered ends, the silver plates on headstall and saddle... to that last moment when—... in the dimly lit room Nostromo rolled his head slowly on the pillow and opened his eyes, directing at the weird132 figure perched by his bedside a glance of enigmatic and mocking scorn. Then his head rolled back, his eyelids133 fell, and the Capatos of the Cargadores died without a word or moan after an hour of immobility, broken by short shudders134 testifying to the most atrocious sufferings"—we are conscious of his superb figure; and after his death we do, indeed, believe what the last lines of the book assure us—"In that true cry of love and grief that seemed to ring aloud from Punta Mala to Azuera and away to the bright line of the horizon, overhung by a big white cloud shining like a mass of solid silver, the 69genius of the magnificent Capatuz de Cargadores dominated the dark gulf135 containing his conquests of treasure and love." His genius dominates, yes—but it is the genius of a magnificent picture standing as a frontispiece to the book of his soul. And that soul is not given us—Nostromo, proud to the last, refuses to surrender it to us. Why is it that the slender sketch of old Singleton in The Nigger of the Narcissus gives us the very heart of the man, so that volumes might tell us more of him indeed, but could not surrender him to us more truly, and all the fine summoning of Nostromo only leaves him beyond our grasp? We believe in Nostromo, but we are told about him—we have not met him.
Nevertheless, at another turn of the road, this criticism must seem the basest ingratitude136. When we look back and survey that crowd, so various, so distinct whether it be they who are busied, before our eyes, with the daily life of Sulaoo, or the Verloc family (the most poignant scene in the whole of Conrad's art—the drive in the 70cab of old Mrs Verloc, Winnie and Stevie—compels, additionally, our gratitude) or that strange gathering137, the Haldins, Nikita, Laspara, Madame de S———, Peter Ivanovitch, Raznmov, at Geneva, or the highly coloured figures in Romance (a book fine in some places, astonishingly second-rate in others), Falk or Amy Foster, Jacobus and his daughter, Jasper and his lover, all those and so many, many more, what can we do but embrace the world that is offered to us, accept it as an axiom of life that, of all these figures, some will be near to us, some more distant? It is, finally, a world that Conrad offers us, not a series of novels in whose pages we find the same two or three figures returning to us—old friends with new faces and new names—but a planet that we know, even as we know the Meredith planet, the Hardy planet, the James planet.
Looking back, we may trace its towns and rivers, its continents and seas, its mean streets and deep valleys, its country houses, its sordid138 hovels, its vast, untamed forests, its deserts and wilderness s. Although each 71work, from, the vast Nostromo to the minutely perfect Secret Share, has its new theme, its form, its separate heart, the swarming139 life that he has created knows no boundary. And in this, surely, creation has accomplished140 its noblest work.
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1
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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aurora
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| n.极光 | |
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chuckle
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| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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chuckled
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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fin
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| n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼 | |
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contemplate
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| vt.盘算，计议；周密考虑；注视，凝视 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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slain
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| 杀死，宰杀，杀戮( slay的过去分词 )； (slay的过去分词) | |
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collapse
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| vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷 | |
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narratives
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| 记叙文( narrative的名词复数 )； 故事； 叙述； 叙述部分 | |
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seamen
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| n.海员 | |
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indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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bibulous
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| adj.高度吸收的，酗酒的 | |
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wastrel
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| n.浪费者；废物 | |
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seaman
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| n.海员，水手，水兵 | |
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narration
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| n.讲述，叙述；故事；记叙体 | |
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lodgers
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| n.房客，租住者( lodger的名词复数 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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fanaticism
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| n.狂热，盲信 | |
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lodges
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| v.存放( lodge的第三人称单数 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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evocation
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| n. 引起，唤起 n. <古> 召唤，招魂 | |
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poignant
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| adj.令人痛苦的，辛酸的，惨痛的 | |
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oratorical
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| adj.演说的，雄辩的 | |
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amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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mariner
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| n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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appalling
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| adj.骇人听闻的，令人震惊的，可怕的 | |
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extravagantly
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| adv.挥霍无度地 | |
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vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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slippers
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| n. 拖鞋 | |
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sling
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| vt.扔；悬挂；n.挂带；吊索，吊兜；弹弓 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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stouter
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| 粗壮的( stout的比较级 )； 结实的； 坚固的； 坚定的 | |
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drooping
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| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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jaunty
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| adj．愉快的，满足的；adv.心满意足地，洋洋得意地；n.心满意足；洋洋得意 | |
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promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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bristles
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| 短而硬的毛发，刷子毛( bristle的名词复数 ) | |
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dart
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| v.猛冲，投掷；n.飞镖，猛冲 | |
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51
suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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52
virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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authenticity
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| n.真实性 | |
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authentic
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| a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的 | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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stint
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| v.节省，限制，停止；n.舍不得化，节约，限制；连续不断的一段时间从事某件事 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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58
chivalrous
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| adj.武士精神的；对女人彬彬有礼的 | |
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hovers
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| 鸟( hover的第三人称单数 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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eloquent
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| adj.雄辩的，口才流利的；明白显示出的 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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beguiled
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| v.欺骗( beguile的过去式和过去分词 )；使陶醉；使高兴；消磨（时间等） | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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vindication
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| n.洗冤，证实 | |
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narrations
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| 叙述事情的经过，故事( narration的名词复数 ) | |
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syllable
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| n.音节；vt.分音节 | |
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omissions
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| n.省略( omission的名词复数 )；删节；遗漏；略去或漏掉的事（或人） | |
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veracity
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| n.诚实 | |
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perusal
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| n.细读，熟读；目测 | |
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melodrama
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| n.音乐剧；情节剧 | |
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71
vindicated
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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flora
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| n.(某一地区的)植物群 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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casually
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| adv.漠不关心地，无动于衷地，不负责任地 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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complaisance
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| n.彬彬有礼，殷勤，柔顺 | |
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cowardice
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| n.胆小，怯懦 | |
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climax
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| n.顶点；高潮；v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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82
huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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credence
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| n.信用，祭器台，供桌，凭证 | |
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charlatan
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| n.骗子；江湖医生；假内行 | |
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zest
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| n.乐趣；滋味，风味；兴趣 | |
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heroism
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| n.大无畏精神，英勇 | |
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irony
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| n.反语，冷嘲；具有讽刺意味的事，嘲弄 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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quail
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| n.鹌鹑；vi.畏惧，颤抖 | |
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reverence
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| n.敬畏，尊敬，尊严；Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称；v.尊敬，敬畏，崇敬 | |
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ironic
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| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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shrug
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| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
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epitome
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| n.典型，梗概 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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insignificant
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| adj.无关紧要的，可忽略的，无意义的 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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disciple
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| n.信徒，门徒，追随者 | |
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lighter
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| n.打火机，点火器；驳船；v.用驳船运送；light的比较级 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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sinister
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| adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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vitality
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| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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omnipotence
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| n.全能，万能，无限威力 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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inevitability
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| n.必然性 | |
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doomed
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| 命定的 | |
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supremely
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| adv.无上地，崇高地 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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pretentious
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| adj.自命不凡的，自负的，炫耀的 | |
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114
abject
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| adj.极可怜的，卑屈的 | |
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115
isolation
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| n.隔离，孤立，分解，分离 | |
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116
baker
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| n.面包师 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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118
misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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119
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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abominable
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| adj.可厌的，令人憎恶的 | |
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121
prologue
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| n.开场白，序言；开端，序幕 | |
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122
courageous
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| adj.勇敢的，有胆量的 | |
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123
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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124
eludes
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| v.（尤指机敏地）避开( elude的第三人称单数 )；逃避；躲避；使达不到 | |
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125
protagonists
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| n.（戏剧的）主角( protagonist的名词复数 )；（故事的）主人公；现实事件（尤指冲突和争端的）主要参与者；领导者 | |
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126
phlegmatic
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| adj.冷静的，冷淡的，冷漠的，无活力的 | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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128
tassels
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| n.穗( tassel的名词复数 )；流苏状物；（植物的）穗；玉蜀黍的穗状雄花v.抽穗， （玉米）长穗须( tassel的第三人称单数 )；使抽穗， （为了使作物茁壮生长）摘去穗状雄花；用流苏装饰 | |
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129
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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130
embroidered
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| adj．绣花的 | |
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linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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132
weird
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| adj.古怪的，离奇的；怪诞的，神秘而可怕的 | |
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133
eyelids
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| n.眼睑( eyelid的名词复数 )；眼睛也不眨一下；不露声色；面不改色 | |
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shudders
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| n.颤动，打颤，战栗( shudder的名词复数 )v.战栗( shudder的第三人称单数 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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ingratitude
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| n.忘恩负义 | |
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137
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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138
sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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139
swarming
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| 密集( swarm的现在分词 )； 云集； 成群地移动； 蜜蜂或其他飞行昆虫成群地飞来飞去 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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