Joseph Conrad - The Nigger Of The Narcissus
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Joseph Conrad >> The Nigger Of The Narcissus
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That night, while the ship rushed foaming to the Northward before a
freshening gale, the boatswain unbosomed himself to the petty officers'
berth:--"The chap was nothing but trouble," he said, "from the moment
he came aboard--d'ye remember--that night in Bombay? Been bullying all
that softy crowd--cheeked the old man--we had to go fooling all over a
half-drowned ship to save him. Dam' nigh a mutiny all for him--and now
the mate abused me like a pickpocket for forgetting to dab a lump of
grease on them planks. So I did, but you ought to have known better,
too, than to leave a nail sticking up--hey, Chips?"
"And you ought to have known better than to chuck all my tools overboard
for 'im, like a skeary greenhorn," retorted the morose carpenter.
"Well--he's gone after 'em now," he added in an unforgiving tone.--"On
the China Station, I remember once, the Admiral he says to me..." began
the sailmaker.
A week afterwards the _Narcissus_ entered the chops of the Channel.
Under white wings she skimmed low over the blue sea like a great tired
bird speeding to its nest. The clouds raced with her mastheads; they
rose astern enormous and white, soared to the zenith, flew past, and
falling down the wide curve of the sky, seemed to dash headlong into the
sea--the clouds swifter than the ship, more free, but without a home.
The coast to welcome her stepped out of space into the sunshine. The
lofty headlands trod masterfully into the sea; the wide bays smiled in
the light; the shadows of homeless clouds ran along the sunny plains,
leaped over valleys, without a check darted up the hills, rolled down
the slopes; and the sunshine pursued them with patches of running
brightness. On the brows of dark cliffs white lighthouses shone in
pillars of light. The Channel glittered like a blue mantle shot with
gold and starred by the silver of the capping seas. The _Narcissus_
rushed past the headlands and the bays. Outward-bound vessels crossed
her track, lying over, and with their masts stripped for a slogging
fight with the hard sou'wester. And, inshore, a string of smoking
steamboats waddled, hugging the coast, like migrating and amphibious
monsters, distrustful of the restless waves.
At night the headlands retreated, the bays advanced into one unbroken
line of gloom. The lights of the earth mingled with the lights of
heaven; and above the tossing lanterns of a trawling fleet a great
lighthouse shone steadily, like an enormous riding light burning above
a vessel of fabulous dimensions. Below its steady glow, the coast,
stretching away straight and black, resembled the high side of an
indestructible craft riding motionless upon the immortal and unresting
sea. The dark land lay alone in the midst of waters, like a mighty ship
bestarred with vigilant lights--a ship carrying the burden of millions
of lives--a ship freighted with dross and with jewels, with gold and
with steel. She towered up immense and strong, guarding priceless
traditions and untold suffering, sheltering glorious memories and base
forgetfulness, ignoble virtues and splendid transgressions. A great
ship! For ages had the ocean battered in vain her enduring sides; she
was there when the world was vaster and darker, when the sea was great
and mysterious, and ready to surrender the prize of fame to audacious
men. A ship mother of fleets and nations! The great flagship of the
race; stronger than the storms! and anchored in the open sea.
The _Narcissus_, heeling over to off-shore gusts, rounded the South
Foreland, passed through the Downs, and, in tow, entered the river.
Shorn of the glory of her white wings, she wound obediently after the
tug through the maze of invisible channels. As she passed them the
red-painted light-vessels, swung at their moorings, seemed for an
instant to sail with great speed in the rush of tide, and the next
moment were left hopelessly behind. The big buoys on the tails of banks
slipped past her sides very low, and, dropping in her wake, tugged at
their chains like fierce watchdogs. The reach narrowed; from both sides
the land approached the ship. She went steadily up the river. On the
riverside slopes the houses appeared in groups--seemed to stream down
the declivities at a run to see her pass, and, checked by the mud of the
foreshore, crowded on the banks. Further on, the tall factory chimneys
appeared in insolent bands and watched her go by, like a straggling
crowd of slim giants, swaggering and upright under the black plummets
of smoke, cavalierly aslant. She swept round the bends; an impure breeze
shrieked a welcome between her stripped spars; and the land, closing in,
stepped between the ship and the sea.
A low cloud hung before her--a great opalescent and tremulous cloud,
that seemed to rise from the steaming brows of millions of men. Long
drifts of smoky vapours soiled it with livid trails; it throbbed to the
beat of millions of hearts, and from it came an immense and lamentable
murmur--the murmur of millions of lips praying, cursing, sighing,
jeering--the undying murmur of folly, regret, and hope exhaled by the
crowds of the anxious earth. The _Narcissus_ entered the cloud; the
shadows deepened; on all sides there was the clang of iron, the sound
of mighty blows, shrieks, yells. Black barges drifted stealthily on the
murky stream. A mad jumble of begrimed walls loomed up vaguely in the
smoke, bewildering and mournful, like a vision of disaster. The
tugs backed and filled in the stream, to hold the ship steady at the
dock-gates; from her bows two lines went through the air whistling, and
struck at the land viciously, like a pair of snakes. A bridge broke in
two before her, as if by enchantment; big hydraulic capstans began to
turn all by themselves, as though animated by a mysterious and unholy
spell. She moved through a narrow lane of water between two low walls
of granite, and men with check-ropes in their hands kept pace with her,
walking on the broad flagstones. A group waited impatiently on each side
of the vanished bridge: rough heavy men in caps; sallow-faced men in
high hats; two bareheaded women; ragged children, fascinated, and with
wide eyes. A cart coming at a jerky trot pulled up sharply. One of the
women screamed at the silent ship--"Hallo, Jack!" without looking at
any one in particular, and all hands looked at her from the forecastle
head.--"Stand clear! Stand clear of that rope!" cried the dockmen,
bending over stone posts. The crowd murmured, stamped where they
stood.--"Let go your quarter-checks! Let go!" sang out a ruddy-faced old
man on the quay. The ropes splashed heavily falling in the water, and
the _Narcissus_ entered the dock.
The stony shores ran away right and left in straight lines, enclosing
a sombre and rectangular pool. Brick walls rose high above the
water!--soulless walls, staring through hundreds of windows as troubled
and dull as the eyes of over-fed brutes. At their base monstrous iron
cranes crouched, with chains hanging from their long necks, balancing
cruel-looking hooks over the decks of lifeless ships. A noise of wheels
rolling over stones, the thump of heavy things falling, the racket of
feverish winches, the grinding of strained chains, floated on the air.
Between high buildings the dust of all the continents soared in short
flights; and a penetrating smell of perfumes and dirt, of spices and
hides, of things costly and of things filthy, pervaded the space, made
for it an atmosphere precious and disgusting. The _Narcissus_ came
gently into her berth; the shadows of soulless walls fell upon her, the
dust of all the continents leaped upon her deck, and a swarm of strange
men, clambering up her sides, took possession of her in the name of the
sordid earth. She had ceased to live.
A toff in a black coat and high hat scrambled with agility, came up to
the second mate, shook hands, and said:--"Hallo, Herbert." It was his
brother. A lady appeared suddenly. A real lady, in a black dress and
with a parasol. She looked extremely elegant in the midst of us, and as
strange as if she had fallen there from the sky. Mr. Baker touched his
cap to her. It was the master's wife. And 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 till, turning on the quay, he called to Mr.
Baker:--"Don't forget to wind up the chronometers to-morrow morning."
An underhand lot of seedy-looking chaps with shifty eyes wandered in and
out of the forecastle looking for a job--they said.--"More likely for
something to steal," commented Knowles, cheerfully. Poor beggars. Who
cared? Weren't we home! But Mr. Baker went for one of them who had given
him some cheek, and we were delighted. Everything was delightful.--"I've
finished aft, sir," called out Mr. Creighton.--"No water in the well,
sir," reported for the last time the carpenter, sounding-rod in hand.
Mr. Baker glanced along the decks at the expectant group of sailors,
glanced aloft at the yards.--"Ough! That will do, men," he grunted. The
group broke up. The voyage was ended.
Rolled-up beds went flying over the rail; lashed chests went sliding
down the gangway--mighty few of both at that. "The rest is having a
cruise off the Cape," explained Knowles enigmatically to a dock-loafer
with whom he had struck a sudden friendship. Men ran, calling to one
another, hailing utter strangers to "lend a hand with the dunnage,"
then with sudden decorum approached the mate to shake hands before going
ashore.--"Good-bye, sir," they repeated in various tones. Mr. Baker
grasped hard palms, grunted in a friendly manner at every one, his eyes
twinkled.--"Take care of your money, Knowles. Ough! Soon get a nice wife
if you do." The lame man was delighted.--"Good-bye, sir," said Belfast,
with emotion, wringing the mate's hand, and looked up with swimming
eyes. "I thought I would take 'im ashore with me," he went on,
plaintively. Mr. Baker did not understand, but said kindly:--"Take
care of yourself, Craik," and the bereaved Belfast went over the rail
mourning and alone.
Mr. Baker, in the sudden peace of the ship, moved about solitary and
grunting, trying door-handles, peering into dark places, never done--a
model chief mate! No one waited for him ashore. Mother dead; 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 misty evening fell, cold and damp, upon the
deserted deck; and Mr. Baker sat smoking, thinking of all the successive
ships to whom through many long years he had given the best of a
seaman's care. And never a command in sight. Not once!--"I haven't
somehow the cut of a skipper about me," he meditated, placidly, while
the shipkeeper (who had taken possession of the galley), a wizened
old man with bleared eyes, cursed him in whispers for "hanging about
so."--"Now, Creighton," he pursued the unenvious train of thought,
"quite a gentleman... swell friends... will get on. Fine young fellow...
a little more experience." He got up and shook himself. "I'll be back
first thing to-morrow morning for the hatches. Don't you let them touch
anything before I come, shipkeeper," he called out. Then, at last, he
also went ashore--a model chief mate!
The men scattered by the dissolving contact of the land came together
once more in the shipping office.---"The _Narcissus_ pays off," shouted
outside a glazed door a brass-bound old fellow with a crown and the
capitals B. T. on his cap. A lot trooped in at once but many were late.
The room was large, white-washed, and bare; a counter surmounted by a
brass-wire grating fenced off a third of the dusty space, and behind the
grating a pasty-faced clerk, with his hair parted in the middle, had
the quick, glittering eyes and the vivacious, jerky movements of a caged
bird. Poor Captain Allistoun also in there, and sitting before a little
table with piles of gold and notes on it, appeared subdued by his
captivity. Another Board of Trade bird was perching on a high stool near
the door: an old bird that did not mind the chaff of elated sailors. The
crew of the _Narcissus_, broken up into knots, pushed in the corners.
They had new shore togs, smart jackets that looked as if they had
been shaped with an axe, glossy trousers that seemed made of crumpled
sheet-iron, collarless flannel shirts, shiny new boots. They tapped on
shoulders, button-holed one another, asked:--> "Where did you sleep last
night?" whispered gaily, slapped their thighs with bursts of subdued
laughter. Most had clean, radiant faces; only one or two turned up
dishevelled and sad; the two-young Norwegians looked tidy, meek, and
altogether of a promising material for the kind ladies who patronise
the Scandinavian Home. Wamibo, still in his working clothes, dreamed,
upright and burly in the middle of the room, and, when Archie came in,
woke up for a smile. But the wide-awake clerk called out a name, and the
paying-off business began.
One by one they came up to the pay-table to get the wages of their
glorious and obscure toil. They swept the money with care into broad
palms, rammed it trustfully into trousers' pockets, or, turning their
backs on the table, reckoned with difficulty in the hollow of their
stiff hands.--"Money right? Sign the release. There--there," repeated
the clerk, impatiently. "How stupid those sailors are!" he thought.
Singleton came up, venerable--and uncertain as to daylight; brown
drops of tobacco juice hung in his white beard; his hands, that never
hesitated in the great light of the open sea, could hardly find the
small pile of gold in the profound darkness of the shore. "Can't write?"
said the clerk, shocked. "Make a mark, then." Singleton painfully
sketched in a heavy cross, blotted the page. "What a disgusting old
brute," muttered the clerk. Somebody opened the door for him, and the
patriarchal seaman passed through unsteadily, without as much as a
glance at any of us.
Archie displayed a pocket-book. He was chaffed. Belfast, who looked
wild, as though he had already luffed up through a public-house or two,
gave signs of emotion and wanted to speak to the Captain privately. The
master was surprised. They spoke through the wires, and we could hear
the Captain saying:--"I've given it up to the Board of Trade." "I should
've liked to get something of his," mumbled Belfast. "But you can't,
my man. It's given up, locked and sealed, to the Marine Office,"
expostulated the master; and Belfast stood back, with drooping mouth and
troubled eyes. In a pause of the business we heard the master and the
clerk talking. We caught: "James Wait--deceased--found no papers of
any kind--no relations--no trace--the Office must hold his wages then."
Donkin entered. He seemed out of breath, was grave, full of business.
He went straight to the desk, talked with animation to the clerk, who
thought him an intelligent man. They discussed the account, dropping h's
against one another as if for a wager--very friendly. Captain Allistoun
paid. "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 ashore." He turned to us. "No more bloomin' sea fur 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. "Yuss. I 'ave friends well off. That's
more'n you got. But I am a man. Yer shipmates for all that. Who's comin
fur a drink?"
No one moved. There was a silence; a silence of blank faces and stony
looks. He waited a moment, smiled bitterly, and went to the door. There
he faced round once more. "You won't? You bloomin' lot of yrpocrits. No?
What 'ave I done to yer? Did I bully yer? Did I 'urt yer? Did I?... You
won't drink?... No!... Then may ye die of thirst, every mother's son
of yer! Not one of yer 'as the sperrit of a bug. Ye're the scum of the
world. Work and starve!"
He went out, and slammed the door with such violence that the old Board
of Trade bird nearly fell off his perch.
"He's mad," declared Archie. "No! No! He's drunk," insisted Belfast,
lurching about, and in a maudlin tone. Captain Allistoun sat smiling
thoughtfully at the cleared pay-table.
Outside, on Tower Hill, they blinked, hesitated clumsily, as if blinded
by the strange quality of the hazy light, as if discomposed by the view
of so many men; and they who could hear one another in the howl of gales
seemed deafened and distracted by the dull roar of the busy earth.--"To
the Black Horse! To the Black Horse!" cried some. "Let us have a
drink together before we part." They crossed the road, clinging to one
another. Only Charley and Belfast wandered off alone. As I came up I saw
a red-faced, blowsy woman, in a grey shawl, and with dusty, fluffy hair,
fall on Charley's neck. It was his mother. She slobbered over him:--"O,
my boy! My boy!"--"Leggo of 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, courageous, 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." In
the next few steps I came upon Belfast. He caught my arm with tremulous
enthusiasm.--"I couldn't go wi' 'em," he stammered, indicating by a nod
our noisy crowd, that drifted slowly along the other sidewalk. "When
I think of Jimmy... Poor Jim! When I think of him I have no heart for
drink. You were his chum, too... but I pulled him out... didn't I? Short
wool he had.... Yes. And I stole the blooming pie.... He wouldn't
go.... He wouldn't go for nobody." He burst into tears. "I never touched
him--never--never!" he sobbed. "He went for me like... like ... a lamb."
I disengaged myself gently. Belfast's crying fits generally ended in
a fight with some one, and I wasn't anxious to stand the brunt of
his inconsolable sorrow. Moreover, two bulky policemen stood near by,
looking at us with a disapproving and incorruptible gaze.--"So long!" I
said, and went on my way.
But at the corner I stopped to take my last look at the crew of the
_Narcissus_. They were swaying irresolute and noisy on the broad
flagstones before the Mint. They were bound for the Black Horse, where
men, in fur caps with brutal faces and in shirt sleeves, dispense out
of varnished barrels the illusions of strength, mirth, happiness; the
illusion of splendour and poetry of life, to the paid-off crews of
southern-going ships. From afar I saw them discoursing, with jovial eyes
and clumsy gestures, while the sea of life thundered into their ears
ceaseless and unheeded. And swaying about there on the white stones,
surrounded by the hurry and clamour of men, they appeared to be
creatures of another kind--lost, alone, forgetful, and doomed; they were
like castaways, like reckless and joyous castaways, like mad castaways
making merry in the storm and upon an insecure ledge of a treacherous
rock. The roar of the town resembled the roar of topping breakers,
merciless and strong, with a loud voice and cruel purpose; but overhead
the clouds broke; a flood of sunshine streamed down the walls of grimy
houses. The dark knot of seamen drifted in sunshine. To the left of them
the trees in Tower Gardens sighed, the stones of the Tower gleaming,
seemed to stir in the play of light, as if remembering suddenly all the
great joys and sorrows of the past, the fighting prototypes of these
men; press-gangs; mutinous cries; the wailing of women by the riverside,
and the shouts of men welcoming victories. The sunshine of heaven fell
like a gift of grace on the mud of the earth, on the remembering and
mute stones, on greed, selfishness; on the anxious faces of forgetful
men. And to the right of the dark group the stained front of the Mint,
cleansed by the flood of light, stood out for a moment dazzling and
white like a marble palace in a fairy tale. The crew of the _Narcissus_
drifted out of sight.
I never saw them again. The sea took some, the steamers took others,
the graveyards of the earth will account for the rest. Singleton has
no doubt taken with him the long record of his faithful work into the
peaceful depths of an hospitable sea. And Donkin, who never did a decent
day's work in his life, no doubt earns his living by discoursing with
filthy eloquence upon the right of labour to live. So be it! Let the
earth and the sea each have its own.
A gone shipmate, like any other man, is gone for ever; and I never met
one of them again. But at times the spring-flood of memory sets with
force up the dark River of the Nine Bends. Then on the waters of the
forlorn stream drifts a ship--a shadowy ship manned by a crew of Shades.
They pass and make a sign, in a shadowy hail. Haven't we, together
and upon the immortal sea, wrung out a meaning from our sinful lives?
Good-bye, brothers! You were a good crowd. As good a crowd as ever
fisted with wild cries the beating canvas of a heavy foresail; or
tossing aloft, invisible in the night, gave back yell for yell to a
westerly gale.
THE END
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