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    NIGGER of THE NARCISSUS
    BY JOSEPH CONRAD



    THE NIGGER of THE NARCISSUS

    A TALE OF THE FORECASTLE

    BY JOSEPH CONRAD

    COPYRIGHT, 1897, 1914,

    BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY


    TO
    EDWARD GARNETT
    THIS TALE
    ABOUT MY FRIENDS
    OF THE SEA


    TO MY READERS IN AMERICA

    From that evening when James Wait joined the ship--late for the muster
    of the crew--to the moment when he left us in the open sea, shrouded in
    sailcloth, through the open port, I had much to do with him. He was in
    my watch. A negro in a British forecastle is a lonely being. He has no
    chums. Yet James Wait, afraid of death and making her his accomplice was
    an impostor of some character--mastering our compassion, scornful of our
    sentimentalism, triumphing over our suspicions.

    But in the book he is nothing; he is merely the centre of the ship's
    collective psychology and the pivot of the action. Yet he, who in the
    family circle and amongst my friends is familiarly referred to as the
    Nigger, remains very precious to me. For the book written round him
    is not the sort of thing that can be attempted more than once in a
    life-time. It is the book by which, not as a novelist perhaps, but as an
    artist striving for the utmost sincerity of expression, I am willing to
    stand or fall. Its pages are the tribute of my unalterable and profound
    affection for the ships, the seamen, the winds and the great sea--the
    moulders of my youth, the companions of the best years of my life.

    After writing the last words of that book, in the revulsion of feeling
    before the accomplished task, I understood that I had done with the sea,
    and that henceforth I had to be a writer. And almost without laying down
    the pen I wrote a preface, trying to express the spirit in which I was
    entering on the task of my new life. That preface on advice (which I now
    think was wrong) was never published with the book. But the late W. E.
    Henley, who had the courage at that time (1897) to serialize my "Nigger"
    in the New Review judged it worthy to be printed as an afterword at the
    end of the last instalment of the tale.

    I am glad that this book which means so much to me is coming out again,
    under its proper title of "The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'" and under the
    auspices of my good, friends and publishers Messrs. Doubleday, Page &
    Co. into the light of publicity.

    Half the span of a generation has passed since W. E. Henley, after
    reading two chapters, sent me a verbal message: "Tell Conrad that if the
    rest is up to the sample it shall certainly come out in the New Review."
    The most gratifying recollection of my writer's life!

    And here is the Suppressed Preface.

    1914.

    JOSEPH CONRAD.



    Contents



    PREFACE

    THE NIGGER OF THE "NARCISSUS"

    CHAPTER ONE

    CHAPTER TWO

    CHAPTER THREE

    CHAPTER FOUR

    CHAPTER FIVE





    PREFACE

    A work that aspires, however humbly, to the condition of art should
    carry its justification in every line. And art itself may be defined
    as a single-minded attempt to render the highest kind of justice to
    the visible universe, by bringing to light the truth, manifold and one,
    underlying its every aspect. It is an attempt to find in its forms, in
    its colours, in its light, in its shadows, in the aspects of matter and
    in the facts of life what of each is fundamental, what is enduring and
    essential--their one illuminating and convincing quality--the very truth
    of their existence. The artist, then, like the thinker or the scientist,
    seeks the truth and makes his appeal. Impressed by the aspect of the
    world the thinker plunges into ideas, the scientist into facts--whence,
    presently, emerging they make their appeal to those qualities of our
    being that fit us best for the hazardous enterprise of living. They
    speak authoritatively to our common-sense, to our intelligence, to
    our desire of peace or to our desire of unrest; not seldom to our
    prejudices, sometimes to our fears, often to our egoism--but always
    to our credulity. And their words are heard with reverence, for their
    concern is with weighty matters: with the cultivation of our minds and
    the proper care of our bodies, with the attainment of our ambitions,
    with the perfection of the means and the glorification of our precious
    aims.

    It is otherwise with the artist.

    Confronted by the same enigmatical spectacle the artist descends within
    himself, and in that lonely region of stress and strife, if he be
    deserving and fortunate, he finds the terms of his appeal. His appeal is
    made to our less obvious capacities: to that part of our nature which,
    because of the warlike conditions of existence, is necessarily kept
    out of sight within the more resisting and hard qualities--like the
    vulnerable body within a steel armour. His appeal is less loud, more
    profound, less distinct, more stirring--and sooner forgotten. Yet its
    effect endures forever. The changing wisdom of successive generations
    discards ideas, questions facts, demolishes theories. But the artist
    appeals to that part of our being which is not dependent on wisdom; to
    that in us which is a gift and not an acquisition--and, therefore, more
    permanently enduring. He speaks to our capacity for delight and wonder,
    to the sense of mystery surrounding our lives; to our sense of pity,
    and beauty, and pain; to the latent feeling of fellowship with all
    creation--and to the subtle but invincible conviction of solidarity that
    knits together the loneliness of innumerable hearts, to the solidarity
    in dreams, in joy, in sorrow, in aspirations, in illusions, in hope,
    in fear, which binds men to each other, which binds together all
    humanity--the dead to the living and the living to the unborn.

    It is only some such train of thought, or rather of feeling, that can
    in a measure explain the aim of the attempt, made in the tale which
    follows, to present an unrestful episode in the obscure lives of a few
    individuals out of all the disregarded multitude of the bewildered, the
    simple and the voiceless. For, if any part of truth dwells in the
    belief confessed above, it becomes evident that there is not a place of
    splendour or a dark corner of the earth that does not deserve, if only
    a passing glance of wonder and pity. The motive then, may be held to
    justify the matter of the work; but this preface, which is simply an
    avowal of endeavour, cannot end here--for the avowal is not yet complete.
    Fiction--if it at all aspires to be art--appeals to temperament. And in
    truth it must be, like painting, like music, like all art, the appeal of
    one temperament to all the other innumerable temperaments whose subtle
    and resistless power endows passing events with their true meaning, and
    creates the moral, the emotional atmosphere of the place and time. Such
    an appeal to be effective must be an impression conveyed through the
    senses; and, in fact, it cannot be made in any other way, because
    temperament, whether individual or collective, is not amenable to
    persuasion. All art, therefore, appeals primarily to the senses, and the
    artistic aim when expressing itself in written words must also make its
    appeal through the senses, if its highest desire is to reach the
    secret spring of responsive emotions. It must strenuously aspire to the
    plasticity of sculpture, to the colour of painting, and to the magic
    suggestiveness of music--which is the art of arts. And it is only through
    complete, unswerving devotion to the perfect blending of form and
    substance; it is only through an unremitting never-discouraged care
    for the shape and ring of sentences that an approach can be made to
    plasticity, to colour, and that the light of magic suggestiveness may be
    brought to play for an evanescent instant over the commonplace surface
    of words: of the old, old words, worn thin, defaced by ages of careless
    usage.

    The sincere endeavour to accomplish that creative task, to go as far on
    that road as his strength will carry him, to go undeterred by faltering,
    weariness or reproach, is the only valid justification for the worker
    in prose. And if his conscience is clear, his answer to those who in
    the fulness of a wisdom which looks for immediate profit, demand
    specifically to be edified, consoled, amused; who demand to be promptly
    improved, or encouraged, or frightened, or shocked, or charmed, must
    run thus:--My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the
    written word to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to
    make you see. That--and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you
    shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation,
    fear, charm--all you demand--and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for
    which you have forgotten to ask. To snatch in a moment of courage,
    from the remorseless rush of time, a passing phase of life, is only the
    beginning of the task. The task approached in tenderness and faith is
    to hold up unquestioningly, without choice and without fear, the rescued
    fragment before all eyes in the light of a sincere mood. It is to show
    its vibration, its colour, its form; and through its movement, its form,
    and its colour, reveal the substance of its truth--disclose its inspiring
    secret: the stress and passion within the core of each convincing
    moment. In a single-minded attempt of that kind, if one be deserving and
    fortunate, one may perchance attain to such clearness of sincerity that
    at last the presented vision of regret or pity, of terror or mirth,
    shall awaken in the hearts of the beholders that feeling of unavoidable
    solidarity; of the solidarity in mysterious origin, in toil, in joy, in
    hope, in uncertain fate, which binds men to each other and all mankind
    to the visible world. It is evident that he who, rightly or wrongly,
    holds by the convictions expressed above cannot be faithful to any one
    of the temporary formulas of his craft. The enduring part of them--the
    truth which each only imperfectly veils--should abide with him as the
    most precious of his possessions, but they all: Realism, Romanticism,
    Naturalism, even the unofficial sentimentalism (which like the poor, is
    exceedingly difficult to get rid of,) all these gods must, after a short
    period of fellowship, abandon him--even on the very threshold of the
    temple--to the stammerings of his conscience and to the outspoken
    consciousness of the difficulties of his work. In that uneasy solitude
    the supreme cry of Art for Art itself, loses the exciting ring of its
    apparent immorality. It sounds far off. It has ceased to be a cry, and
    is heard only as a whisper, often incomprehensible, but at times and
    faintly encouraging.

    Sometimes, stretched at ease in the shade of a roadside tree, we watch
    the motions of a labourer in a distant field, and after a time, begin to
    wonder languidly as to what the fellow may be at. We watch the movements
    of his body, the waving of his arms, we see him bend down, stand up,
    hesitate, begin again. It may add to the charm of an idle hour to be
    told the purpose of his exertions. If we know he is trying to lift
    a stone, to dig a ditch, to uproot a stump, we look with a more real
    interest at his efforts; we are disposed to condone the jar of his
    agitation upon the restfulness of the landscape; and even, if in a
    brotherly frame of mind, we may bring ourselves to forgive his failure.
    We understood his object, and, after all, the fellow has tried, and
    perhaps he had not the strength--and perhaps he had not the knowledge. We
    forgive, go on our way--and forget.

    And so it is with the workman of art. Art is long and life is short,
    and success is very far off. And thus, doubtful of strength to travel
    so far, we talk a little about the aim--the aim of art, which, like life
    itself, is inspiring, difficult--obscured by mists; it is not in the
    clear logic of a triumphant conclusion; it is not in the unveiling of
    one of those heartless secrets which are called the Laws of Nature. It
    is not less great, but only more difficult.

    To arrest, for the space of a breath, the hands busy about the work of
    the earth, and compel men entranced by the sight of distant goals to
    glance for a moment at the surrounding vision of form and colour, of
    sunshine and shadows; to make them pause for a look, for a sigh, for a
    smile--such is the aim, difficult and evanescent, and reserved only for a
    very few to achieve. But sometimes, by the deserving and the fortunate,
    even that task is accomplished. And when it is accomplished--behold!--all
    the truth of life is there: a moment of vision, a sigh, a smile--and the
    return to an eternal rest.

    1897. J. C.



    THE NIGGER OF THE "NARCISSUS"



    CHAPTER ONE

    Mr. Baker, chief mate of the ship Narcissus, stepped in one stride out
    of his lighted cabin into the darkness of the quarter-deck. Above his
    head, on the break of the poop, the night-watchman rang a double stroke.
    It was nine o'clock. Mr. Baker, speaking up to the man above him,
    asked:--"Are all the hands aboard, Knowles?"

    The man limped down the ladder, then said reflectively:--

    "I think so, sir. All our old chaps are there, and a lot of new men has
    come.... They must be all there."

    "Tell the boatswain to send all hands aft," went on Mr. Baker; "and tell
    one of the youngsters to bring a good lamp here. I want to muster our
    crowd."

    The main deck was dark aft, but halfway from forward, through the open
    doors of the forecastle, two streaks of brilliant light cut the shadow
    of the quiet night that lay upon the ship. A hum of voices was
    heard there, while port and starboard, in the illuminated doorways,
    silhouettes of moving men appeared for a moment, very black, without
    relief, like figures cut out of sheet tin. The ship was ready for sea.
    The carpenter had driven in the last wedge of the mainhatch battens,
    and, throwing down his maul, had wiped his face with great deliberation,
    just on the stroke of five. The decks had been swept, the windlass oiled
    and made ready to heave up the anchor; the big tow-rope lay in long
    bights along one side of the main deck, with one end carried up and hung
    over the bows, in readiness for the tug that would come paddling and
    hissing noisily, hot and smoky, in the limpid, cool quietness of the
    early morning. The captain was ashore, where he had been engaging some
    new hands to make up his full crew; and, the work of the day over,
    the ship's officers had kept out of the way, glad of a little
    breathing-time. Soon after dark the few liberty-men and the new hands
    began to arrive in shore-boats rowed by white-clad Asiatics,
    who clamoured fiercely for payment before coming alongside the
    gangway-ladder. The feverish and shrill babble of Eastern language
    struggled against the masterful tones of tipsy seamen, who argued
    against brazen claims and dishonest hopes by profane shouts. The
    resplendent and bestarred peace of the East was torn into squalid
    tatters by howls of rage and shrieks of lament raised over sums ranging
    from five annas to half a rupee; and every soul afloat in Bombay Harbour
    became aware that the new hands were joining the Narcissus.

    Gradually the distracting noise had subsided. The boats came no longer
    in splashing clusters of three or four together, but dropped alongside
    singly, in a subdued buzz of expostulation cut short by a "Not a
    pace more! You go to the devil!" from some man staggering up the
    accommodation-ladder--a dark figure, with a long bag poised on the
    shoulder. In the forecastle the newcomers, upright and swaying amongst
    corded boxes and bundles of bedding, made friends with the old hands,
    who sat one above another in the two tiers of bunks, gazing at their
    future shipmates with glances critical but friendly. The two forecastle
    lamps were turned up high, and shed an intense hard glare; shore-going
    round hats were pushed far on the backs of heads, or rolled about on the
    deck amongst the chain-cables; white collars, undone, stuck out on each
    side of red faces; big arms in white sleeves gesticulated; the growling
    voices hummed steady amongst bursts of laughter and hoarse calls. "Here,
    sonny, take that bunk!... Don't you do it!... What's your last ship?...
    I know her.... Three years ago, in Puget Sound.... This here berth
    leaks, I tell you!... Come on; give us a chance to swing that chest!...
    Did you bring a bottle, any of you shore toffs?... Give us a bit of
    'baccy.... I know her; her skipper drank himself to death.... He was a
    dandy boy!... Liked his lotion inside, he did!... No!... Hold your row,
    you chaps!... I tell you, you came on board a hooker, where they get
    their money's worth out of poor Jack, by--!..."

    A little fellow, called Craik and nicknamed Belfast, abused the ship
    violently, romancing on principle, just to give the new hands something
    to think over. Archie, sitting aslant on his sea-chest, kept his knees
    out of the way, and pushed the needle steadily through a white patch
    in a pair of blue trousers. Men in black jackets and stand-up collars,
    mixed with men bare-footed, bare-armed, with coloured shirts open
    on hairy chests, pushed against one another in the middle of the
    forecastle. The group swayed, reeled, turning upon itself with the
    motion of a scrimmage, in a haze of tobacco smoke. All were speaking
    together, swearing at every second word. A Russian Finn, wearing a
    yellow shirt with pink stripes, stared upwards, dreamy-eyed, from under
    a mop of tumbled hair. Two young giants with smooth, baby faces--two
    Scandinavians--helped each other to spread their bedding, silent, and
    smiling placidly at the tempest of good-humoured and meaningless curses.
    Old Singleton, the oldest able seaman in the ship, set apart on the deck
    right under the lamps, stripped to the waist, tattooed like a cannibal
    chief all over his powerful chest and enormous biceps. Between the blue
    and red patterns his white skin gleamed like satin; his bare back was
    propped against the heel of the bowsprit, and he held a book at
    arm's length before his big, sunburnt face. With his spectacles and a
    venerable white beard, he resembled a learned and savage patriarch, the
    incarnation of barbarian wisdom serene in the blasphemous turmoil of
    the world. He was intensely absorbed, and as he turned the pages an
    expression of grave surprise would pass over his rugged features. He was
    reading "Pelham." The popularity of Bulwer Lytton in the forecastles of
    Southern-going ships is a wonderful and bizarre phenomenon. What ideas
    do his polished and so curiously insincere sentences awaken in the
    simple minds of the big children who people those dark and wandering
    places of the earth? What meaning can their rough, inexperienced
    souls find in the elegant verbiage of his pages? What excitement?--what
    forgetfulness?--what appeasement? Mystery! Is it the fascination of the
    incomprehensible?--is it the charm of the impossible? Or are those
    beings who exist beyond the pale of life stirred by his tales as by an
    enigmatical disclosure of a resplendent world that exists within the
    frontier of infamy and filth, within that border of dirt and hunger, of
    misery and dissipation, that comes down on all sides to the water's edge
    of the incorruptible ocean, and is the only thing they know of life, the
    only thing they see of surrounding land--those life-long prisoners of the
    sea? Mystery! Singleton, who had sailed to the southward since the
    age of twelve, who in the last forty-five years had lived (as we
    had calculated from his papers) no more than forty months ashore--old
    Singleton, who boasted, with the mild composure of long years well
    spent, that generally from the day he was paid off from one ship
    till the day he shipped in another he seldom was in a condition to
    distinguish daylight--old Singleton sat unmoved in the clash of voices
    and cries, spelling through "Pelham" with slow labour, and lost in an
    absorption profound enough to resemble a trance. He breathed regularly.
    Every time he turned the book in his enormous and blackened hands the
    muscles of his big white arms rolled slightly under the smooth skin.
    Hidden by the white moustache, his lips, stained with tobacco-juice that
    trickled down the long beard, moved in inward whisper. His bleared eyes
    gazed fixedly from behind the glitter of black-rimmed glasses. Opposite
    to him, and on a level with his face, the ship's cat sat on the barrel
    of the windlass in the pose of a crouching chimera, blinking its green
    eyes at its old friend. It seemed to meditate a leap on to the old man's
    lap over the bent back of the ordinary seaman who sat at Singleton's
    feet. Young Charley was lean and long-necked. The ridge of his
    backbone made a chain of small hills under the old shirt. His face of a
    street-boy--a face precocious, sagacious, and ironic, with deep downward
    folds on each side of the thin, wide mouth--hung low over his bony knees.
    He was learning to make a lanyard knot with a bit of an old rope. Small
    drops of perspiration stood out on his bulging forehead; he sniffed
    strongly from time to time, glancing out of the corners of his restless
    eyes at the old seaman, who took no notice of the puzzled youngster
    muttering at his work.

    The noise increased. Little Belfast seemed, in the heavy heat of the
    forecastle, to boil with facetious fury. His eyes danced; in the crimson
    of his face, comical as a mask, the mouth yawned black, with strange
    grimaces. Facing him, a half-undressed man held his sides, and, throwing
    his head back, laughed with wet eyelashes. Others stared with amazed
    eyes. Men sitting doubled up in the upper bunks smoked short pipes,
    swinging bare brown feet above the heads of those who, sprawling below
    on sea-chests, listened, smiling stupidly or scornfully. Over the white
    rims of berths stuck out heads with blinking eyes; but the bodies were
    lost in the gloom

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