Lord Jim

Joseph Conrad

• Editore: Youcanprint
• Anno: 2018
• ISBN:
  9788827813430
• Argomento: Letteratura
• Categoria: Classici

The course of a young sailor's life is forever changed when, in a moment of weakness, he, along with the ship's crew, abandons his distressed ship and its passengers. Now deserted by his fellow crewmembers, Jim is left to face the consequences of their actions alone, and loses his sailing accreditation and ability to make a living as a result. Through the support of Charles Marlow, a sea captain, Jim is able to re-establish his life, and is eventually offered the redemption he so desperately desires.

CHAPTER 1

He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built,and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of theshoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which madeyou think of a charging bull. His voice was deep, loud, and hismanner displayed a kind of dogged self-assertion which hadnothingaggressive in it. It seemed a necessity, and it was directedapparently as much at himself as at anybody else. He was spotlesslyneat, apparelled in immaculate white from shoes to hat, and in thevarious Eastern ports where he got his living asship-chandler’s water-clerk he was very popular.

A water-clerk need not pass an examination in anything under thesun, but he must have Ability in the abstract and demonstrate itpractically. His work consists in racing under sail, steam, or oarsagainst other water-clerks for any ship about to anchor, greetingher captain cheerily, forcing upon him a card—the businesscard of the ship-chandler—and on his first visit on shorepiloting him firmly but without ostentation to a vast, cavern-likeshop which is full of things that are eaten and drunk on boardship; where you can get everything to make her seaworthy andbeautiful, from a set of chain-hooks for her cable to a book ofgold-leaf for the carvings of her stern; and where her commander isreceived like a brother by a ship-chandler he has never seenbefore. There is a cool parlour, easy-chairs, bottles, cigars,writing implements, a copy of harbour regulations, and a warmth ofwelcome that melts the salt of a three months’ passage out ofa seaman’s heart. The connection thus begun is kept up, aslong as the ship remains in harbour, by the daily visits of thewater-clerk. To the captain he is faithful like a friend andattentive like a son, with the patience of Job, the unselfishdevotion of a woman, and the jollity of a boon companion. Later onthe bill is sent in. It is a beautiful and humane occupation.Therefore good water-clerks are scarce. When a water-clerk whopossesses Ability in the abstract has also the advantage of havingbeen brought up to the sea, he is worth to his employer a lot ofmoney and some humouring. Jim had always good wages and as muchhumouring as would have bought the fidelity of a fiend.Nevertheless, with black ingratitude he would throw up the jobsuddenly and depart. To his employers the reasons he gave wereobviously inadequate. They said ‘Confounded fool!’ assoon as his back was turned. This was their criticism on hisexquisite sensibility.

To the white men in the waterside business and to the captainsof ships he was just Jim—nothing more. He had, of course,another name, but he was anxious that it should not be pronounced.His incognito, which had as many holes as a sieve, was not meant tohide a personality but a fact. When the fact broke through theincognito he would leave suddenly the seaport where he happened tobe at the time and go to another—generally farther east. Hekept to seaports because he was a seaman in exile from the sea, andhad Ability in the abstract, which is good for no other work butthat of a water-clerk. He retreated in good order towards therising sun, and the fact followed him casually but inevitably. Thusin the course of years he was known successively in Bombay, inCalcutta, in Rangoon, in Penang, in Batavia—and in each ofthese halting-places was just Jim the water-clerk. Afterwards, whenhis keen perception of the Intolerable drove him away for good fromseaports and white men, even into the virgin forest, the Malays ofthe jungle village, where he hadelected to conceal his deplorablefaculty, added a wordto the monosyllable of his incognito. Theycalled him Tuan Jim: as one might say—Lord Jim.

Originally he came from a parsonage. Many commanders of finemerchant-ships come from these abodes of piety and peace.Jim’s father possessed such certain knowledgeof theUnknowable as made for the righteousness of people in cottageswithout disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an unerringProvidence enables to live in mansions. The little church on a hillhad the mossy greyness of a rock seen through a raggedscreen ofleaves. It had stood there for centuries, but the trees aroundprobably remembered the laying of the first stone. Below, the redfront of the rectory gleamed with a warm tint in the midst ofgrass-plots, flower-beds, and fir-trees, with an orchard at theback, a paved stable-yard to the left, and the sloping glass ofgreenhouses tacked along a wall of bricks. The living had belongedto the family for generations; but Jim was one of five sons, andwhen after a course of light holiday literature hisvocation for thesea had declared itself, he was sent at once to a‘training-ship for officers of the mercantilemarine.’

He learned there a little trigonometry and how to crosstop-gallant yards. He was generally liked. He had the third placein navigation and pulled stroke in the first cutter. Having asteady head with an excellent physique, he was very smart aloft.His station was in the fore-top, and often from there he lookeddown, with the contempt of a man destined to shine in the midst ofdangers,at the peaceful multitude of roofs cut in two by the browntide of the stream, while scattered on the outskirts of thesurrounding plain the factory chimneys rose perpendicular against agrimy sky, each slender like a pencil, and belching out smoke likeavolcano. He could see the big ships departing, the broad-beamedferries constantly on the move, the little boats floating far belowhis feet, with the hazy splendour of the sea in the distance, andthe hope of a stirring life in the world of adventure.

Onthe lower deck in the babel of two hundred voices he wouldforget himself, and beforehand live in his mind the sea-life oflight literature. He saw himself saving people from sinking ships,cutting away masts in a hurricane, swimming through a surf withaline; or as a lonely castaway, barefooted and half naked, walkingon uncovered reefs in search of shellfish to stave off starvation.He confronted savages on tropical shores, quelled mutinies on thehigh seas, and in a small boat upon the ocean kept up thehearts ofdespairing men—always an example of devotion to duty, and asunflinching as a hero in a book.

‘Something’s up. Come along.’

He leaped to his feet. The boys were streaming up the ladders.Above could be heard a great scurrying about and shouting,and whenhe got through the hatchway he stood still—as ifconfounded.

It was the dusk of a winter’s day. The gale had freshenedsince noon, stopping the traffic on the river, and now blew withthe strength of a hurricane in fitful bursts that boomedlikesalvoes of great guns firing over the ocean. The rain slantedin sheets that flicked and subsided, and between whiles Jim hadthreatening glimpses of the tumbling tide, the small craft jumbledand tossing along the shore, the motionless buildings in thedriving mist, the broad ferry-boats pitching ponderously at anchor,the vast landing-stages heaving up and down and smothered insprays. The next gust seemed to blow all this away. The air wasfull of flying water. There was a fierce purpose in the gale, afurious earnestness in the screechof the wind, in the brutal tumultof earth and sky, that seemed directed at him, and made him holdhis breath in awe. He stood still. It seemed to him he was whirledaround.

He was jostled. ‘Man the cutter!’ Boys rushed pasthim. A coaster running in for shelter had crashed through aschooner at anchor, and one of the ship’s instructors hadseen the accident. A mob of boys clambered on the rails, clusteredround the davits. ‘Collision. Just ahead of us. Mr. Symonssaw it.’A push made him stagger against the mizzen-mast, andhe caught hold of a rope. The old training-ship chained to hermoorings quivered all over, bowing gently head to wind, and withher scanty rigging humming in a deep bass the breathless song ofher youthat sea. ‘Lower away!’ He saw the boat, manned,drop swiftly below the rail, and rushed after her. He heard asplash. ‘Let go; clear the falls!’ He leaned over. Theriver alongside seethed in frothy streaks. The cutter could be seenin the falling darknessunder the spell of tide and wind, that for amoment held her bound, and tossing abreast of the ship. A yellingvoice in her reached him faintly: ‘Keep stroke, you youngwhelps, if you want to save anybody! Keep stroke!’ Andsuddenly she lifted high her bow, and, leaping with raised oarsover a wave, broke the spell cast upon her by the wind andtide.

Jim felt his shoulder gripped firmly. ‘Too late,youngster.’ The captain of the ship laid a restraining handon that boy, who seemed on the point of leaping overboard, and Jimlooked up with the pain of conscious defeat in his eyes. Thecaptain smiled sympathetically. ‘Better luck next time. Thiswill teach you to be smart.’

A shrill cheer greeted the cutter. She came dancing back halffull of water, and with two exhausted men washing about on herbottom boards. The tumult and the menace of wind and sea nowappeared very contemptible to Jim, increasing the regret of his aweat their inefficient menace. Now he knew what to think of it. Itseemed to him he cared nothing for the gale. He could affrontgreater perils. He would do so—better than anybody. Not aparticle of fear was left. Nevertheless he brooded apart thatevening while the bowman of the cutter—a boy with a face likea girl’s and big grey eyes—was the hero of the lowerdeck. Eager questioners crowded round him. He narrated: ‘Ijust saw his head bobbing, and I dashed my boat-hook in the water.It caught in his breeches and I nearly went overboard, as I thoughtI would, only old Symons let go the tiller andgrabbed mylegs—the boat nearly swamped. Old Symons is a fine old chap.I don’t mind a bit him being grumpy with us. He swore at meall the time he held my leg, but that was only his way of tellingme to stick to the boat-hook. Old Symons is awfullyexcitable—isn’t he? No—not the little fairchap—the other, the big one with a beard. When we pulled himin he groaned, “Oh, my leg! oh, my leg!” and turned uphis eyes. Fancy such a big chap fainting like a girl. Would any ofyou fellows faint for a jab with aboat-hook?—Iwouldn’t. It went into his leg so far.’ He showed theboat-hook, which he had carried below for the purpose, and produceda sensation. ‘No, silly! It was not his flesh that heldhim—his breeches did. Lots of blood, of course.’

Jim thought it apitiful display of vanity. The gale hadministered to a heroism as spurious as its own pretence of terror.He felt angry with the brutal tumult of earth and sky for takinghim unawares and checking unfairly a generous readiness for narrowescapes. Otherwise he was rather glad he had not gone into thecutter, since a lower achievement had served the turn. He hadenlarged his knowledge more than those who had done the work. Whenall men flinched, then—he felt sure—he alone would knowhow to deal withthe spurious menace of wind and seas. He knew whatto think of it. Seen dispassionately, it seemed contemptible. Hecould detect no trace of emotion in himself, and the final effectof a staggering event was that, unnoticed and apart from the noisycrowd of boys,he exulted with fresh certitude in his avidity foradventure, and in a sense of many-sided courage.

CHAPTER 2

After two years of training he went to sea, and entering theregions so well known to his imagination, found them strangelybarren of adventure. He made many voyages. He knew the magicmonotony of existence between sky and water: he had to bear thecriticism of men, the exactions of the sea, and the prosaicseverity of the daily task that gives bread—but whose onlyreward is in the perfectlove of the work. This reward eluded him.Yet he could not go back, because there is nothing more enticing,disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea. Besides, hisprospects were good. He was gentlemanly, steady, tractable, with athorough knowledge of his duties; and in time, when yet very young,he became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever having beentested by those events of the sea that show in the light of day theinner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of hisstuff;that reveal the quality of his resistance and the secrettruth of his pretences, not only to others but also to himself.

Only once in all that time he had again a glimpse of theearnestness in the anger of the sea. That truth is not so oftenmade apparentas people might think. There are many shades in thedanger of adventures and gales, and it is only now and then thatthere appears on the face of facts a sinister violence ofintention—that indefinable something which forces it upon themind and the heartof a man, that this complication of accidents orthese elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose of malice,with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled cruelty thatmeans to tear out of him his hope and his fear, the pain of hisfatigue and his longing for rest: which means to smash, to destroy,to annihilate all he has seen, known, loved, enjoyed, or hated; allthat is priceless and necessary—the sunshine, the memories,the future; which means to sweep the whole precious world utterlyaway from his sight by the simple and appalling act of taking hislife.

Jim, disabled by a falling spar at the beginning of a week ofwhich his Scottish captain used to say afterwards, ‘Man!it’s a pairfect meeracle to me how she lived throughit!’ spent many days stretched on his back, dazed, battered,hopeless, and tormented as if at the bottom of an abyss of unrest.He did not care what the end would be, and in his lucid momentsovervalued his indifference. The danger, when not seen, has theimperfect vaguenessof human thought. The fear grows shadowy; andImagination, the enemy of men, the father of all terrors,unstimulated, sinks to rest in the dullness of exhausted emotion.Jim saw nothing but the disorder of his tossed cabin. He lay therebattened down in the midst of a small devastation, and feltsecretly glad he had not to go on deck. But now and again anuncontrollable rush of anguish would grip him bodily, make him gaspand writhe under the blankets, and then the unintelligent brutalityof an existence liable to the agony of such sensations filled himwith a despairing desire to escape at any cost. Then fine weatherreturned, and he thought no more about It.

His lameness, however, persisted, and when the ship arrived atan Eastern port he had to go to thehospital. His recovery was slow,and he was left behind.

There were only two other patients in the white men’sward: the purser of a gunboat, who had broken his leg falling downa hatchway; and a kind of railway contractor from aneighbouringprovince, afflicted by some mysterious tropical disease, who heldthe doctor for an ass, and indulged in secret debaucheries ofpatent medicine which his Tamil servant used to smuggle in withunwearied devotion. They told each other the story of their lives,played cards a little, or, yawning and in pyjamas, lounged throughthe day in easy-chairs without saying a word. The hospital stood ona hill, and a gentle breeze entering through the windows, alwaysflung wide open, brought into the bare room the softness of thesky, the languor of the earth, the bewitching breath of the Easternwaters. There were perfumes in it, suggestions of infinite repose,the gift of endless dreams. Jim looked every day over the thicketsof gardens, beyond the roofs of the town, over the fronds of palmsgrowing on the shore, at that roadstead which is a thoroughfare tothe East,—at the roadstead dotted by garlanded islets,lighted by festal sunshine, its ships like toys, its brilliantactivity resembling a holiday pageant, with the eternal serenity ofthe Eastern sky overhead and the smiling peace of the Eastern seaspossessing the space as far as the horizon.

Directly he could walk without a stick, he descended into thetown to look for some opportunity to get home. Nothing offered justthen,and, while waiting, he associated naturally with the men ofhis calling in the port. These were of two kinds. Some, very fewand seen there but seldom, led mysterious lives, had preserved anundefaced energy with the temper of buccaneers and the eyes ofdreamers. They appeared to live in a crazy maze of plans, hopes,dangers, enterprises, ahead of civilisation, in the dark places ofthe sea; and their death was the only event of their fantasticexistence that seemed to have a reasonable certitude ofachievement. The majority were men who, like himself, thrown thereby some accident, had remained as officers of country ships. Theyhad now a horror of the home service, with its harder conditions,severer view of duty, and the hazard of stormy oceans. Theywereattuned to the eternal peace of Eastern sky and sea. They lovedshort passages, good deck-chairs, large native crews, and thedistinction of being white. They shuddered at the thought of hardwork, and led precariously easy lives, always on the verge ofdismissal, always on the verge of engagement, serving Chinamen,Arabs, half-castes—would have served the devil himself had hemade it easy enough. They talked everlastingly of turns of luck:how So-and-so got charge of a boat on the coast of China—asoft thing; how this one had an easy billet in Japan somewhere, andthat one was doing well in the Siamese navy; and in all theysaid—in their actions, in their looks, in theirpersons—could be detected the soft spot, the place of decay,the determination to lounge safely through existence.

To Jim that gossiping crowd, viewed as seamen, seemed at firstmore unsubstantial than so many shadows. But at length he found afascination in the sight of those men, in their appearance of doingso well on such a small allowance of danger and toil. In time,beside the original disdain there grew up slowly another sentiment;and suddenly, giving up the idea of going home, he took a berth aschief mate of the Patna.

The Patna was a local steamer as old as the hills, lean likeagreyhound, and eaten up with rust worse than a condemnedwater-tank. She was owned by a Chinaman, chartered by an Arab, andcommanded by a sort of renegade New South Wales German, veryanxious to curse publicly his native country, but who, apparentlyon the strength of Bismarck’s victorious policy, brutalisedall those he was not afraid of, and wore a‘blood-and-iron’ air,’ combined with a purplenose and a red moustache. After she had been painted outsideandwhitewashed inside, eight hundred pilgrims (more or less) weredriven on board of her as she lay with steam up alongside a woodenjetty.

They streamed aboard over three gangways, they streamed in urgedby faith and the hope of paradise, they streamed in with acontinuous tramp and shuffle of bare feet,without a word, a murmur,or a look back; and when clear of confining rails spread on allsides over the deck, flowed forward and aft, overflowed down theyawning hatchways, filled the inner recesses of the ship—likewater filling a cistern, like water flowing into crevices andcrannies, like water rising silently even with the rim. Eighthundred men and women with faith and hopes, with affections andmemories, they had collected there, coming from north and south andfrom the outskirts of the East, aftertreading the jungle paths,descending the rivers, coasting in praus along the shallows,crossing in small canoes from island to island, passing throughsuffering, meeting strange sights, beset by strange fears, upheldby one desire. They came from solitaryhuts in the wilderness, frompopulous campongs, from villages by the sea. At the call of an ideathey had left their forests, their clearings, the protection oftheir rulers, their prosperity, their poverty, the surroundings oftheir youth and the gravesof their fathers. They came covered withdust, with sweat, with grime, with rags—the strong men at thehead of family parties, the lean old men pressing forward withouthope of return; young boys with fearless eyes glancing curiously,shy little girls withtumbled long hair; the timid women muffled upand clasping to their breasts, wrapped in loose ends of soiledhead-cloths, their sleeping babies, the unconscious pilgrims of anexacting belief.

‘Look at dese cattle,’ said the German skipper tohis new chief mate.

An Arab, the leader of that pious voyage, came last. He walkedslowly aboard, handsome and grave in his white gown and largeturban. A string of servants followed, loaded with his luggage; thePatna cast off and backed away from the wharf.

She washeaded between two small islets, crossed obliquely theanchoring-ground of sailing-ships, swung through half a circle inthe shadow of a hill, then ranged close to a ledge of foamingreefs. The Arab, standing up aft, recited aloud the prayer oftravellersby sea. He invoked the favour of the Most High upon thatjourney, implored His blessing on men’s toil and on thesecret purposes of their hearts; the steamer pounded in the duskthe calm water of the Strait; and far astern of the pilgrim ship ascrew-pilelighthouse, planted by unbelievers on a treacherousshoal, seemed to wink at her its eye of flame, as if in derision ofher errand of faith.

She cleared the Strait, crossed the bay, continued on her waythrough the ‘One-degree’ passage. She held onstraightfor the Red Sea under a serene sky, under a sky scorching andunclouded, enveloped in a fulgor of sunshine that killed allthought, oppressed the heart, withered all impulses of strength andenergy. And under the sinister splendour of that sky thesea, blueand profound, remained still, without a stir, without a ripple,without a wrinkle—viscous, stagnant, dead. The Patna, with aslight hiss, passed over that plain, luminous and smooth, unrolleda black ribbon of smoke across the sky, left behind her on thewater a white ribbon of foam that vanished at once, like thephantom of a track drawn upon a lifeless sea by the phantom of asteamer.

Every morning the sun, as if keeping pace in his revolutionswith the progress of the pilgrimage, emerged witha silent burst oflight exactly at the same distance astern of the ship, caught upwith her at noon, pouring the concentrated fire of his rays on thepious purposes of the men, glided past on his descent, and sankmysteriously into the sea evening after evening, preserving thesame distance ahead of her advancing bows. The five whites on boardlived amidships, isolated from the human cargo. The awnings coveredthe deck with a white roof from stem to stern, and a faint hum, alow murmur of sad voices, alonerevealed the presence of a crowd ofpeople upon the great blaze of the ocean. Such were the days,still, hot, heavy, disappearing one by one into the past, as iffalling into an abyss for ever open in the wake of the ship; andthe ship, lonely under a wispof smoke, held on her steadfast wayblack...

Indice dei contenuti

• AUTHOR’S NOTE
• CHAPTER 1
• CHAPTER 2
• CHAPTER 3
• CHAPTER 4
• CHAPTER 5
• CHAPTER 6
• CHAPTER 7
• CHAPTER 8
• CHAPTER 9
• CHAPTER 10
• CHAPTER 11
• CHAPTER 12
• CHAPTER 13
• CHAPTER 14
• CHAPTER 15
• CHAPTER 16
• CHAPTER 17
• CHAPTER 18
• CHAPTER 19
• CHAPTER 20
• CHAPTER 21
• CHAPTER 22
• CHAPTER 23
• CHAPTER 24
• CHAPTER 25
• CHAPTER 26
• CHAPTER 27
• CHAPTER 28
• CHAPTER 29
• CHAPTER 30
• CHAPTER 31
• CHAPTER 32
• CHAPTER 33
• CHAPTER 34
• CHAPTER 35
• CHAPTER 36
• CHAPTER 37
• CHAPTER 38
• CHAPTER 39
• CHAPTER 40
• CHAPTER 41
• CHAPTER 42
• CHAPTER 43
• CHAPTER 44
• CHAPTER 45