Joseph Conrad - The Nigger Of The Narcissus
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Joseph Conrad >> The Nigger Of The Narcissus
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In the morning the ship, beginning another day of her wandering life,
had an aspect of sumptuous freshness, like the spring-time of the earth.
The washed decks glistened in a long clear stretch; the oblique sunlight
struck the yellow brasses in dazzling splashes, darted over the polished
rods in lines of gold, and the single drops of salt water forgotten here
and there along the rail were as limpid as drops of dew, and sparkled
more than scattered diamonds. The sails slept, hushed by a gentle
breeze. The sun, rising lonely and splendid in the blue sky, saw a
solitary ship gliding close-hauled on the blue sea.
The men pressed three deep abreast of the mainmast and opposite the
cabin-door. They shuffled, pushed, had an irresolute mien and stolid
faces. At every slight movement Knowles lurched heavily on his short
leg. Donkin glided behind backs, restless and anxious, like a man
looking for an ambush. Captain Allistoun came out on the quarter-deck
suddenly. He walked to and fro before the front. He was grey, slight,
alert, shabby in the sunshine, and as hard as adamant. He had his right
hand in the side-pocket of his jacket, and also something heavy in there
that made folds all down that side. One of the seamen cleared his throat
ominously.--"I haven't till now found fault with you men," said the
master, stopping short. He faced them with his worn, steely gaze, that
by a universal illusion looked straight into every individual pair of
the twenty pairs of eyes before his face. At his back Mr. Baker, gloomy
and bull-necked, grunted low; Mr. Creighton, fresh as paint, had rosy
cheeks and a ready, resolute bearing. "And I don't now," continued the
master; "but I am here to drive this ship and keep every man-jack aboard
of her up to the mark. If you knew your work as well as I do mine,
there would be no trouble. You've been braying in the dark about 'See
to-morrow morning!' Well, you see me now. What do you want?" He waited,
stepping quickly to and fro, giving them searching glances. What did
they want? They shifted from foot to foot, they balanced their bodies;
some, pushing back their caps, scratched their heads. What did they
want? Jimmy was forgotten; no one thought of him, alone forward in
his cabin, fighting great shadows, clinging to brazen lies, chuckling
painfully over his transparent deceptions. No, not Jimmy; he was more
forgotten than if he had been dead. They wanted great things. And
suddenly all the simple words they knew seemed to be lost for ever in
the immensity of their vague and burning desire. They knew what they
wanted, but they could not find anything worth saying. They stirred on
one spot, swinging, at the end of muscular arms, big tarry hands with
crooked fingers. A murmur died out.--"What is it--food?" asked the
master, "you know the stores have been spoiled off the Cape."--"We know
that, sir," said a bearded shell-back in the front rank.--"Work too
hard--eh? Too much for your strength?" he asked again. There was an
offended silence.--"We don't want to go shorthanded, sir," began at last
Davis in a wavering voice, "and this 'ere black...."--"Enough!" cried
the master. He stood scanning them for a moment, then walking a few
steps this way and that began to storm at them coldly, in gusts
violent and cutting like the gales of those icy seas that had known
his youth.--"Tell you what's the matter? Too big for your boots. Think
yourselves damn good men. Know half your work. Do half your duty. Think
it too much. If you did ten times as much it wouldn't be
enough."--"We did our best by her, sir," cried some one with shaky
exasperation.--"Your best," stormed on the master; "You hear a lot on
shore, don't you? They don't tell you there your best isn't much to
boast of. I tell you--your best is no better than bad."
"You can do no more? No, I know, and say nothing. But you stop your caper
or I will stop it for you. I am ready for you! Stop it!" He shook a
finger at the crowd. "As to that man," he raised his voice very much;
"as to that man, if he puts his nose out on deck without my leave I will
clap him in irons. There!" The cook heard him forward, ran out of the
galley lifting his arms, horrified, unbelieving, amazed, and ran in
again. There was a moment of profound silence during which a bow-legged
seaman, stepping aside, expectorated decorously into the scupper. "There
is another thing," said the master, calmly. He made a quick stride and
with a swing took an iron belaying-pin out of his pocket. "This!" His
movement was so unexpected and sudden that the crowd stepped back. He
gazed fixedly at their faces, and some at once put on a surprised air as
though they had never seen a belay-ing-pin before. He held it up. "This
is my affair. I don't ask you any questions, but you all know it; it has
got to go where it came from." His eyes became angry. The crowd stirred
uneasily. They looked away from the piece of iron, they appeared shy,
they were embarrassed and shocked as though it had been something
horrid, scandalous, or indelicate, that in common decency should not
have been flourished like this in broad daylight. The master watched
them attentively. "Donkin," he called out in a short, sharp tone.
Donkin dodged behind one, then behind another, but they looked over
their shoulders and moved aside. The ranks kept on opening before him,
closing behind, till at last he appeared alone before the master as
though he had come up through the deck. Captain Allistoun moved close to
him. They were much of a size, and at short range the master exchanged a
deadly glance with the beady eyes. They wavered.--"You know this?"
asked the master.--"No, I don't," answered the other, with cheeky
trepidation.--"You are a cur. Take it," ordered the master. Donkin's
arms seemed glued to his thighs; he stood, eyes front, as if drawn
on parade. "Take it," repeated the master, and stepped closer; they
breathed on one another. "Take it," said Captain Allistoun again, making
a menacing gesture. Donkin tore away one arm from his side.--"Vy are yer
down on me?" he mumbled with effort and as if his mouth had been full of
dough.--"If you don't..." began the master. Donkin snatched at the pin
as though his intention had been to run away with it, and remained stock
still holding it like a candle. "Put it back where you took it from,"
said Captain Allistoun, looking at him fiercely. Donkin stepped back
opening wide eyes. "Go, you blackguard, or I will make you," cried the
master, driving him slowly backwards by a menacing advance. He dodged,
and with the dangerous iron tried to guard his head from a threatening
fist. Mr. Baker ceased grunting for a moment.--"Good! By Jove," murmured
appreciatively Mr. Creighton in the tone of a connoisseur.--"Don't tech
me," snarled Donkin, backing away.--"Then go. Go faster."--"Don't yer
'it me.... I will pull yer up afore the magistryt.... I'll show yer
up." Captain Allistoun made a long stride, and Donkin, turning his back
fairly, ran off a little, then stopped and over his shoulder showed
yellow teeth.--"Further on, fore-rigging," urged the master, pointing
with his arm.--"Are yer goin' to stand by and see me bullied?" screamed
Donkin at the silent crowd that watched him. Captain Allistoun walked
at him smartly. He started off again with a leap, dashed at the
fore-rigging, rammed the pin into its hole violently. "I'll be even
with yer yet," he screamed at the ship at large and vanished beyond
the foremast. Captain Allistoun spun round and walked back aft with a
composed face, as though he had already forgotten the scene. Men moved
out of his way. He looked at no one.--"That will do, Mr. Baker. Send
the watch below," he said, quietly. "And you men try to walk straight
for the future," he added in a calm voice. He looked pensively for a
while at the backs of the impressed and retreating crowd. "Breakfast,
steward," he called in a tone of relief through the cabin door.--"I
didn't like to see you--Ough!--give that pin to that chap, sir,"
observed Mr. Baker; "he could have bust--Ough!--bust your head like an
eggshell with it."--"O! he!" muttered the master, absently. "Queer lot,"
he went on in a low voice. "I suppose it's all right now. Can never tell
tho' nowadays, with such a... Years ago; I was a young master then--one
China voyage I had a mutiny; real mutiny, Baker. Different men tho'. I
knew what they wanted: they wanted to broach the cargo and get at the
liquor. Very simple.... We knocked them about for two days, and when
they had enough--gentle as lambs. Good crew. And a smart trip I made."
He glanced aloft at the yards braced sharp up. "Head wind day after
day," he exclaimed, bitterly. "Shall we never get a decent slant this
passage?"--"Ready, sir," said the steward, appearing before them as if
by magic and with a stained napkin in his hand.--"Ah! All right. Come
along, Mr. Baker--it's late--with all this nonsense."
CHAPTER FIVE
A heavy atmosphere of oppressive quietude pervaded the ship. In the
afternoon men went about washing clothes and hanging them out to dry
in the unprosperous breeze with the meditative languor of disenchanted
philosophers. Very little was said. The problem of life seemed too
voluminous for the narrow limits of human speech, and by common consent
it was abandoned to the great sea that had from the beginning enfolded
it in its immense grip; to the sea that knew all, and would in time
infallibly unveil to each the wisdom hidden in all the errors, the
certitude that lurks in doubts, the realm of safety and peace beyond the
frontiers of sorrow and fear. And in the confused current of impotent
thoughts that set unceasingly this way and that through bodies of men,
Jimmy bobbed up upon the surface, compelling attention, like a black
buoy chained to the bottom of a muddy stream. Falsehood triumphed.
It triumphed through doubt, through stupidity, through pity, through
sentimentalism. We set ourselves to bolster it up from compassion,
from recklessness, from a sense of fun. Jimmy's steadfastness to
his untruthful attitude in the face of the inevitable truth had
the proportions of a colossal enigma--of a manifestation grand and
incomprehensible that at times inspired a wondering awe; and there was
also, to many, something exquisitely droll in fooling him thus to the
top of his bent. The latent egoism of tenderness to suffering
appeared in the developing anxiety not to see him die. His obstinate
non-recognition of the only certitude whose approach we could watch from
day to day was as disquieting as the failure of some law of nature. He
was so utterly wrong about himself that one could not but suspect him of
having access to some source of supernatural knowledge. He was absurd
to the point of inspiration. He was unique, and as fascinating as only
something inhuman could be; he seemed to shout his denials already from
beyond the awful border. He was becoming immaterial like an apparition;
his cheekbones rose, the forehead slanted more; the face was all
hollows, patches of shade; and the fleshless head resembled a
disinterred black skull, fitted with two restless globes of silver in
the sockets of eyes. He was demoralising. Through him we were becoming
highly humanised, tender, complex,' excessively decadent: we understood
the subtlety of his fear, sympathised with all his repulsions,
shrinkings, evasions, delusions--as though we had been over-civilised,
and rotten, and without any knowledge of the meaning of life. We had the
air of being initiated in some infamous mysteries; we had the profound
grimaces of conspirators, exchanged meaning glances, significant short
words. We were inexpressibly vile and very much pleased with ourselves.
We lied to him with gravity, with emotion, with unction, as if
performing some moral trick with a view to an eternal reward. We made a
chorus of affirmation to his wildest assertions, as though he had been
a millionaire, a politician, or a reformer--and we a crowd of ambitious
lubbers. When we ventured to question his statements we did it after
the manner of obsequious sycophants, to the end that his glory should be
augmented by the flattery of our dissent. He influenced the moral tone
of our world as though he had it in his power to distribute honours,
treasures, or pain; and he could give us nothing but his contempt. It
was immense; it seemed to grow gradually larger, as his body day by
day shrank a little more, while we looked. It was the only thing about
him--of him--that gave the impression of durability and vigour. It lived
within him with an unquenchable life. It spoke through the eternal pout
of his black lips; it looked at us through the impertinent mournfulness
of his languid and enormous stare. We watched him intently. He seemed
unwilling to move, as if distrustful of his own solidity. The slightest
gesture must have disclosed to him (it could not surely be otherwise)
his bodily weakness, and caused a pang of mental suffering. He was chary
of movements. He lay stretched out, chin on blanket, in a kind of
sly, cautious immobility. Only his eyes roamed over faces: his eyes
disdainful, penetrating and sad.
It was at that time that Belfast's devotion--and also his
pugnacity--secured universal respect. He spent every moment of his spare
time in Jimmy's cabin. He tended him, talked to him; was as gentle as
a woman, as tenderly gay as an old philanthropist, as sentimentally
careful of his nigger as a model slave-owner. But outside he was
irritable, explosive as gunpowder, sombre, suspicious, and never more
brutal than when most sorrowful. With him it was a tear and a blow:
a tear for Jimmy, a blow for any one who did not seem to take a
scrupulously orthodox view of Jimmy's case. We talked about nothing
else. The two Scandinavians, even, discussed the situation--but it was
impossible to know in what spirit, because they quarrelled in their
own language. Belfast suspected one of them of irreverence, and in this
incertitude thought that there was no option but to fight them both.
They became very much terrified by his truculence, and henceforth
lived amongst us, dejected, like a pair of mutes. Wamibo never spoke
intelligibly, but he was as smileless as an animal--seemed to know much
less about it all than the cat--and consequently was safe. Moreover,
he had belonged to the chosen band of Jimmy's rescuers, and was above
suspicion. Archie was silent generally, but often spent an hour or so
talking to Jimmy quietly with an air of proprietorship. At any time of
the day and often through the night some man could be seen sitting
on Jimmy's box. In the evening, between six and eight, the cabin was
crowded, and there was an interested group at the door. Every one stared
at the nigger.
He basked in the warmth of our interest. His eye gleamed ironically,
and in a weak voice he reproached us with our cowardice. He would say,
"If you fellows had stuck out for me I would be now on deck." We hung
our heads. "Yes, but if you think I am going; to let them put me in
irons just to show you sport.... Well, no.... It ruins my health, this
lying-up, it does. You don't care." We were as abashed as if it had
been true. His superb impudence carried all before it. We would not have
dared to revolt. We didn't want to, really. We wanted to keep him alive
till home--to the end of the voyage.
Singleton as usual held aloof, appearing to scorn the insignificant
events of an ended life. Once only he came along, and unexpectedly
stopped in the doorway. He peered at Jimmy in profound silence, as if
desirous to add that black image to the crowd of Shades that peopled
his old memory. We kept very quiet, and for a long time Singleton stood
there as though he had come by appointment to call for some one, or to
see some important event. James Wait lay perfectly still, and apparently
not aware of the gaze scrutinising him with a steadiness full of
expectation. There was a sense of a contest in the air. We felt the
inward strain of men watching a wrestling bout. At last Jimmy with
perceptible apprehension turned his head on the pillow.--"Good evening,"
he said in a conciliating tone.--"H'm," answered the old seaman,
grumpily. For a moment longer he looked at Jimmy with severe fixity,
then suddenly went away. It was a long time before any one spoke in
the little cabin, though we all breathed more freely as men do after an
escape from some dangerous situation. We all knew the old man's ideas
about Jimmy, and nobody dared to combat them. They were unsettling, they
caused pain; and, what was worse, they might have been true for all
we knew. Only once did he condescend to explain them fully, but the
impression was lasting. He said that Jimmy was the cause of head winds.
Mortally sick men--he maintained--linger till the first sight of land,
and then die; and Jimmy knew that the very first land would draw his
life from him. It is so in every ship. Didn't we know it? He asked
us with austere contempt: what did we know? What would we doubt next?
Jimmy's desire encouraged by us and aided by Wamibo's (he was a
Finn--wasn't he? Very well!) by Wamibo's spells delayed the ship in the
open sea. Only lubberly fools couldn't see it. Whoever heard of ouch
a run of calms and head winds? It wasn't natural.... We could not deny
that it was strange. We felt uneasy. The common saying, "More days, more
dollars," did not give the usual comfort because the stores were running
short. Much had been spoiled off the Cape, and we were on half allowance
of biscuit. Peas, sugar and tea had been finished long ago. Salt meat
was giving out. We had plenty of coffee but very little water to make
it with. We took up another hole in our belts and went on scraping,
polishing, painting the ship from morning to night. And soon she looked
as though she had come out of a band-box; but hunger lived on board of
her. Not dead starvation, but steady, living hunger that stalked about
the decks, slept in the forecastle; the tormentor of waking moments, the
disturber of dreams. We looked to windward for signs of change. Every
few hours of night and day we put her round with the hope that she would
come up on that tack at last! She didn't. She seemed to have forgotten
the way home; she rushed to and fro, heading northwest, heading east;
she ran backwards and forwards, distracted, like a timid creature at
the foot of a wall. Sometimes, as if tired to death, she would wallow
languidly for a day in the smooth swell of an unruffled sea. All up the
swinging masts the sails thrashed furiously through the hot stillness
of the calm. We were weary, hungry, thirsty; we commenced to believe
Singleton, but with unshaken fidelity dissembled to Jimmy. We spoke
to him with jocose allusiveness, like cheerful accomplices in a clever
plot; but we looked to the westward over the rail with longing eyes for
a sign of hope, for a sign of fair wind; even if its first breath should
bring death to our reluctant Jimmy. In vain! The universe conspired
with James Wait. Light airs from the northward sprang up again; the sky
remained clear; and round our weariness the glittering sea, touched by
the breeze, basked voluptuously in the great sunshine, as though it had
forgotten our life and trouble.
Donkin looked out for a fair wind along with the rest. No one knew the
venom of his thoughts now. He was silent, and appeared thinner, as if
consumed slowly by an inward rage at the injustice of men and of fate.
He was ignored by all and spoke to no one, but his hate for every man
dwelt in his furtive eyes. He talked with the cook only, having somehow
persuaded the good man that he--Donkin--was a much calumniated and
persecuted person. Together they bewailed the immorality of the ship's
company. There could be no greater criminals than we, who by our lies
conspired to send the unprepared soul of a poor ignorant black man
to everlasting perdition. Podmore cooked what there was to cook,
remorsefully, and felt all the time that by preparing the food of such
sinners he imperilled his own salvation. As to the Captain--he had
sailed with him for seven years, now, he said, and would not have
believed it possible that such a man... "Well. Well... There it was...
Can't get out of it. Judgment capsized all in a minute... Struck in all
his pride... More like a sudden visitation than anything else." Donkin,
perched sullenly on the coal-locker, swung his legs and concurred. He
paid in the coin of spurious assent for the privilege to sit in the
galley; he was disheartened and scandalised; he agreed with the cook;
could find no words severe enough to criticise our conduct; and when in
the heat of reprobation he swore at us, Podmore, who would have liked to
swear also if it hadn't been for his principles, pretended not to
hear. So Donkin, unrebuked, cursed enough for two, cadged for matches,
borrowed tobacco, and loafed for hours, very much at home, before the
stove. From there he could hear us on the other side of the bulkhead,
talking to Jimmy. The cook knocked the saucepans about, slammed the oven
door, muttered prophesies of damnation for all the ship's company;
and Donkin, who did not admit of any hereafter (except for purposes of
blasphemy) listened, concentrated and angry, gloating fiercely over
a called-up image of infinite torment--as men gloat over the accursed
images of cruelty and revenge, of greed, and of power....
On clear evenings the silent ship, under the cold sheen of the dead
moon, took on a false aspect of passionless repose resembling the winter
of the earth. Under her a long band of gold barred the black disc of
the sea. Footsteps echoed on her quiet decks. The moonlight clung to her
like a frosted mist, and the white sails stood out in dazzling cones
as of stainless snow. In the magnificence of the phantom rays the ship
appeared pure like a vision of ideal beauty, illusive like a tender
dream of serene peace. And nothing in her was real, nothing was distinct
and solid but the heavy shadows that filled her decks with their
unceasing and noiseless stir: the shadows darker than the night and more
restless than the thoughts of men.
Donkin prowled spiteful and alone amongst the shadows, thinking that
Jimmy too long delayed to die. That evening land had been reported from
aloft, and the master, while adjusting the tubes of the long glass, had
observed with quiet bitterness to Mr. Baker that, after fighting our way
inch by inch to the Western Islands, there was nothing to expect now
but a spell of calm. The sky was clear and the barometer high. The light
breeze dropped with the sun, and an enormous stillness, forerunner of
a night without wind, descended upon the heated waters of the ocean.
As long as daylight lasted, the hands collected on the forecastle-head
watched on the eastern sky the island of Flores, that rose above the
level expanse of the sea with irregular and broken outlines like a
sombre ruin upon a vast and deserted plain. It was the first land seen
for nearly four months. Charley was excited, and in the midst of general
indulgence took liberties with his betters. Men strangely elated without
knowing why, talked in groups, and pointed with bared arms. For the
first time that voyage Jimmy's sham existence seemed for a moment
forgotten in the face of a solid reality. We had got so far anyhow.
Belfast discoursed, quoting imaginary examples of short homeward runs
from the Islands. "Them smart fruit schooners do it in five days,"
he affirmed. "What do you want?--only a good little breeze." Archie
maintained that seven days was the record passage, and they disputed
amicably with insulting words. Knowles declared he could already smell
home from there, and with a heavy list on his short leg laughed fit to
split his sides. A group of grizzled sea-dogs looked out for a time in
silence and with grim absorbed faces. One said suddenly--"'Tain't far
to London now."--"My first night ashore, blamme if I haven't steak and
onions for supper... and a pint of bitter," said another.--"A barrel ye
mean," shouted someone.--"Ham an' eggs three times a day. That's the way
I live!" cried an excited voice. There was a stir, appreciative murmurs;
eyes began to shine; jaws champed; short, nervous laughs were heard.
Archie smiled with reserve all to himself. Singleton came up, gave a
careless glance, and went down again without saying a word, indifferent,
like a man who had seen Flores an incalculable number of times. The
night travelling from the East blotted out of the limpid sky the purple
stain of the high land. "Dead calm," said somebody quietly. The murmur
of lively talk suddenly wavered, died out; the clusters broke up; men
began to drift away one by one, descending the ladders slowly and with
serious faces as if sobered by that reminder of their dependence upon
the invisible. And when the big yellow moon ascended gently above
the sharp rim of the clear horizon it found the ship wrapped up in a
breathless silence; a fearless ship that seemed to sleep profoundly,
dreamlessly on the bosom of the sleeping and terrible sea.
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