An Outcast of the Islands
by Joseph Conrad
Pues el delito mayor
Del hombre es haber nacito
CALDERON
TO
EDWARD LANCELOT SANDERSON
AUTHOR'S NOTE
"An Outcast of the Islands" is my second novel in the absolute
sense of the word; second in conception, second in execution,
second as it were in its essence. There was no hesitation,
half-formed plan, vague idea, or the vaguest reverie of anything
else between it and "Almayer's Folly." The only doubt I suffered
from, after the publication of "Almayer's Folly," was whether I
should write another line for print. Those days, now grown so
dim, had their poignant moments. Neither in my mind nor in my
heart had I then given up the sea. In truth I was clinging to it
desperately, all the more desperately because, against my will, I
could not help feeling that there was something changed in my
relation to it. "Almayer's Folly," had been finished and done
with. The mood itself was gone. But it had left the memory of
an experience that, both in thought and emotion was unconnected
with the sea, and I suppose that part of my moral being which is
rooted in consistency was badly shaken. I was a victim of
contrary stresses which produced a state of immobility. I gave
myself up to indolence. Since it was impossible for me to face
both ways I had elected to face nothing. The discovery of new
values in life is a very chaotic experience; there is a
tremendous amount of jostling and confusion and a momentary
feeling of darkness. I let my spirit float supine over that
chaos.
A phrase of Edward Garnett's is, as a matter of fact, responsible
for this book. The first of the friends I made for myself by my
pen it was but natural that he should be the recipient, at that
time, of my confidences. One evening when we had dined together
and he had listened to the account of my perplexities (I fear he
must have been growing a little tired of them) he pointed out
that there was no need to determine my future absolutely. Then
he added: "You have the style, you have the temperament; why not
write another?" I believe that as far as one man may wish to
influence another man's life Edward Garnett had a great desire
that I should go on writing. At that time, and I may say, ever
afterwards, he was always very patient and gentle with me. What
strikes me most however in the phrase quoted above which was
offered to me in a tone of detachment is not its gentleness but
its effective wisdom. Had he said, "Why not go on writing," it
is very probable he would have scared me away from pen and ink
for ever; but there was nothing either to frighten one or arouse
one's antagonism in the mere suggestion to "write another." And
thus a dead point in the revolution of my affairs was insidiously
got over. The word "another" did it. At about eleven o'clock of
a nice London night, Edward and I walked along interminable
streets talking of many things, and I remember that on getting
home I sat down and wrote about half a page of "An Outcast of the
Islands" before I slept. This was committing myself definitely,
I won't say to another life, but to another book. There is
apparently something in my character which will not allow me to
abandon for good any piece of work I have begun. I have laid
aside many beginnings. I have laid them aside with sorrow, with
disgust, with rage, with melancholy and even with self-contempt;
but even at the worst I had an uneasy consciousness that I would
have to go back to them.
"An Outcast of the Islands" belongs to those novels of mine that
were never laid aside; and though it brought me the qualification
of "exotic writer" I don't think the charge was at all justified.
For the life of me I don't see that there is the slightest exotic
spirit in the conception or style of that novel. It is certainly
the most TROPICAL of my eastern tales. The mere scenery got a
great hold on me as I went on, perhaps because (I may just as
well confess that) the story itself was never very near my heart.
It engaged my imagination much more than my affection. As to my
feeling for Willems it was but the regard one cannot help having
for one's own creation. Obviously I could not be indifferent to
a man on whose head I had brought so much evil simply by
imagining him such as he appears in the novel--and that, too, on
a very slight foundation.
The man who suggested Willems to me was not particularly
interesting in himself. My interest was aroused by his dependent
position, his strange, dubious status of a mistrusted, disliked,
worn-out European living on the reluctant toleration of that
Settlement hidden in the heart of the forest-land, up that sombre
stream which our ship was the only white men's ship to visit.
With his hollow, clean-shaved cheeks, a heavy grey moustache and
eyes without any expression whatever, clad always in a spotless
sleeping suit much be-frogged in front, which left his lean neck
wholly uncovered, and with his bare feet in a pair of straw
slippers, he wandered silently amongst the houses in daylight,
almost as dumb as an animal and apparently much more homeless. I
don't know what he did with himself at night. He must have had a
place, a hut, a palm-leaf shed, some sort of hovel where he kept
his razor and his change of sleeping suits. An air of futile
mystery hung over him, something not exactly dark but obviously
ugly. The only definite statement I could extract from anybody
was that it was he who had "brought the Arabs into the river."
That must have happened many years before. But how did he bring
them into the river? He could hardly have done it in his arms
like a lot of kittens. I knew that Almayer founded the
chronology of all his misfortunes on the date of that fateful
advent; and yet the very first time we dined with Almayer there
was Willems sitting at table with us in the manner of the
skeleton at the feast, obviously shunned by everybody, never
addressed by any one, and for all recognition of his existence
getting now and then from Almayer a venomous glance which I
observed with great surprise. In the course of the whole evening
he ventured one single remark which I didn't catch because his
articulation was imperfect, as of a man who had forgotten how to
speak. I was the only person who seemed aware of the sound.
Willems subsided. Presently he retired, pointedly
unnoticed--into the forest maybe? Its immensity was there,
within three hundred yards of the verandah, ready to swallow up
anything. Almayer conversing with my captain did not stop talking
while he glared angrily at the retreating back. Didn't that
fellow bring the Arabs into the river! Nevertheless Willems
turned up next morning on Almayer's verandah. From the bridge of
the steamer I could see plainly these two, breakfasting together,
tete a tete and, I suppose, in dead silence, one with his air of
being no longer interested in this world and the other raising
his eyes now and then with intense dislike.
It was clear that in those days Willems lived on Almayer's
charity. Yet on returning two months later to Sambir I heard
that he had gone on an expedition up the river in charge of a
steam-launch belonging to the Arabs, to make some discovery or
other. On account of the strange reluctance that everyone
manifested to talk about Willems it was impossible for me to get
at the rights of that transaction. Moreover, I was a newcomer,
the youngest of the company, and, I suspect, not judged quite fit
as yet for a full confidence. I was not much concerned about
that exclusion. The faint suggestion of plots and mysteries
pertaining to all matters touching Almayer's affairs amused me
vastly. Almayer was obviously very much affected. I believe he
missed Willems immensely. He wore an air of sinister
preoccupation and talked confidentially with my captain. I could
catch only snatches of mumbled sentences. Then one morning as I
came along the deck to take my place at the breakfast table
Almayer checked himself in his low-toned discourse. My captain's
face was perfectly impenetrable. There was a moment of profound
silence and then as if unable to contain himself Almayer burst
out in a loud vicious tone:
"One thing's certain; if he finds anything worth having up there
they will poison him like a dog."
Disconnected though it was, that phrase, as food for thought, was
distinctly worth hearing. We left the river three days
afterwards and I never returned to Sambir; but whatever happened
to the protagonist of my Willems nobody can deny that I have
recorded for him a less squalid fate.
J. C.
1919.
PART I
AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS
CHAPTER ONE
When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar
honesty, it was with an inward assertion of unflinching resolve
to fall back again into the monotonous but safe stride of virtue
as soon as his little excursion into the wayside quagmires had
produced the desired effect. It was going to be a short
episode--a sentence in brackets, so to speak--in the flowing tale
of his life: a thing of no moment, to be done unwillingly, yet
neatly, and to be quickly forgotten. He imagined that he could
go on afterwards looking at the sunshine, enjoying the shade,
breathing in the perfume of flowers in the small garden before
his house. He fancied that nothing would be changed, that he
would be able as heretofore to tyrannize good-humouredly over his
half-caste wife, to notice with tender contempt his pale yellow
child, to patronize loftily his dark-skinned brother-in-law, who
loved pink neckties and wore patent-leather boots on his little
feet, and was so humble before the white husband of the lucky
sister. Those were the delights of his life, and he was unable to
conceive that the moral significance of any act of his could
interfere with the very nature of things, could dim the light of
the sun, could destroy the perfume of the flowers, the submission
of his wife, the smile of his child, the awe-struck respect of
Leonard da Souza and of all the Da Souza family. That family's
admiration was the great luxury of his life. It rounded and
completed his existence in a perpetual assurance of
unquestionable superiority. He loved to breathe the coarse
incense they offered before the shrine of the successful white
man; the man that had done them the honour to marry their
daughter, sister, cousin; the rising man sure to climb very high;
the confidential clerk of Hudig & Co. They were a numerous and
an unclean crowd, living in ruined bamboo houses, surrounded by
neglected compounds, on the outskirts of Macassar. He kept them
at arm's length and even further off, perhaps, having no
illusions as to their worth. They were a half-caste, lazy lot,
and he saw them as they were--ragged, lean, unwashed, undersized
men of various ages, shuffling about aimlessly in slippers;
motionless old women who looked like monstrous bags of pink
calico stuffed with shapeless lumps of fat, and deposited askew
upon decaying rattan chairs in shady corners of dusty verandahs;
young women, slim and yellow, big-eyed, long-haired, moving
languidly amongst the dirt and rubbish of their dwellings as if
every step they took was going to be their very last. He heard
their shrill quarrellings, the squalling of their children, the
grunting of their pigs; he smelt the odours of the heaps of
garbage in their courtyards: and he was greatly disgusted. But
he fed and clothed that shabby multitude; those degenerate
descendants of Portuguese conquerors; he was their providence; he
kept them singing his praises in the midst of their laziness, of
their dirt, of their immense and hopeless squalor: and he was
greatly delighted. They wanted much, but he could give them all
they wanted without ruining himself. In exchange he had their
silent fear, their loquacious love, their noisy veneration. It
is a fine thing to be a providence, and to be told so on every
day of one's life. It gives one a feeling of enormously remote
superiority, and Willems revelled in it. He did not analyze the
state of his mind, but probably his greatest delight lay in the
unexpressed but intimate conviction that, should he close his
hand, all those admiring human beings would starve. His
munificence had demoralized them. An easy task. Since he
descended amongst them and married Joanna they had lost the
little aptitude and strength for work they might have had to put
forth under the stress of extreme necessity. They lived now by
the grace of his will. This was power. Willems loved it.
In another, and perhaps a lower plane, his days did not want for
their less complex but more obvious pleasures. He liked the
simple games of skill--billiards; also games not so simple, and
calling for quite another kind of skill--poker. He had been the
aptest pupil of a steady-eyed, sententious American, who had
drifted mysteriously into Macassar from the wastes of the
Pacific, and, after knocking about for a time in the eddies of
town life, had drifted out enigmatically into the sunny solitudes
of the Indian Ocean. The memory of the Californian stranger was
perpetuated in the game of poker--which became popular in the
capital of Celebes from that time--and in a powerful cocktail,
the recipe for which is transmitted--in the Kwang-tung
dialect--from head boy to head boy of the Chinese servants in the
Sunda Hotel even to this day. Willems was a connoisseur in the
drink and an adept at the game. Of those accomplishments he was
moderately proud. Of the confidence reposed in him by Hudig--the
master--he was boastfully and obtrusively proud. This arose from
his great benevolence, and from an exalted sense of his duty to
himself and the world at large. He experienced that irresistible
impulse to impart information which is inseparable from gross
ignorance. There is always some one thing which the ignorant man
knows, and that thing is the only thing worth knowing; it fills
the ignorant man's universe. Willems knew all about himself. On
the day when, with many misgivings, he ran away from a Dutch
East-Indiaman in Samarang roads, he had commenced that study of
himself, of his own ways, of his own abilities, of those
fate-compelling qualities of his which led him toward that
lucrative position which he now filled. Being of a modest and
diffident nature, his successes amazed, almost frightened him,
and ended--as he got over the succeeding shocks of surprise--by
making him ferociously conceited. He believed in his genius and
in his knowledge of the world. Others should know of it also;
for their own good and for his greater glory. All those friendly
men who slapped him on the back and greeted him noisily should
have the benefit of his example. For that he must talk. He
talked to them conscientiously. In the afternoon he expounded his
theory of success over the little tables, dipping now and then
his moustache in the crushed ice of the cocktails; in the evening
he would often hold forth, cue in hand, to a young listener
across the billiard table. The billiard balls stood still as if
listening also, under the vivid brilliance of the shaded oil
lamps hung low over the cloth; while away in the shadows of the
big room the Chinaman marker would lean wearily against the wall,
the blank mask of his face looking pale under the mahogany
marking-board; his eyelids dropped in the drowsy fatigue of late
hours and in the buzzing monotony of the unintelligible stream of
words poured out by the white man. In a sudden pause of the talk
the game would recommence with a sharp click and go on for a time
in the flowing soft whirr and the subdued thuds as the balls
rolled zig-zagging towards the inevitably successful cannon.
Through the big windows and the open doors the salt dampness of
the sea, the vague smell of mould and flowers from the garden of
the hotel drifted in and mingled with the odour of lamp oil,
growing heavier as the night advanced. The players' heads dived
into the light as they bent down for the stroke, springing back
again smartly into the greenish gloom of broad lamp-shades; the
clock ticked methodically; the unmoved Chinaman continuously
repeated the score in a lifeless voice, like a big talking
doll--and Willems would win the game. With a remark that it was
getting late, and that he was a married man, he would say a
patronizing good-night and step out into the long, empty street.
At that hour its white dust was like a dazzling streak of
moonlight where the eye sought repose in the dimmer gleam of rare
oil lamps. Willems walked homewards, following the line of walls
overtopped by the luxuriant vegetation of the front gardens. The
houses right and left were hidden behind the black masses of
flowering shrubs. Willems had the street to himself. He would
walk in the middle, his shadow gliding obsequiously before him.
He looked down on it complacently. The shadow of a successful
man! He would be slightly dizzy with the cocktails and with the
intoxication of his own glory. As he often told people, he came
east fourteen years ago--a cabin boy. A small boy. His shadow
must have been very small at that time; he thought with a smile
that he was not aware then he had anything--even a shadow--which
he dared call his own. And now he was looking at the shadow of
the confidential clerk of Hudig & Co. going home. How glorious!
How good was life for those that were on the winning side! He
had won the game of life; also the game of billiards. He walked
faster, jingling his winnings, and thinking of the white stone
days that had marked the path of his existence. He thought of the
trip to Lombok for ponies--that first important transaction
confided to him by Hudig; then he reviewed the more important
affairs: the quiet deal in opium; the illegal traffic in
gunpowder; the great affair of smuggled firearms, the difficult
business of the Rajah of Goak. He carried that last through by
sheer pluck; he had bearded the savage old ruler in his council
room; he had bribed him with a gilt glass coach, which, rumour
said, was used as a hen-coop now; he had over-persuaded him; he
had bested him in every way. That was the way to get on. He
disapproved of the elementary dishonesty that dips the hand in
the cash-box, but one could evade the laws and push the
principles of trade to their furthest consequences. Some call
that cheating. Those are the fools, the weak, the contemptible.
The wise, the strong, the respected, have no scruples. Where
there are scruples there can be no power. On that text he
preached often to the young men. It was his doctrine, and he,
himself, was a shining example of its truth.
Night after night he went home thus, after a day of toil and
pleasure, drunk with the sound of his own voice celebrating his
own prosperity. On his thirtieth birthday he went home thus. He
had spent in good company a nice, noisy evening, and, as he
walked along the empty street, the feeling of his own greatness
grew upon him, lifted him above the white dust of the road, and
filled him with exultation and regrets. He had not done himself
justice over there in the hotel, he had not talked enough about
himself, he had not impressed his hearers enough. Never mind.
Some other time. Now he would go home and make his wife get up
and listen to him. Why should she not get up?--and mix a
cocktail for him--and listen patiently. Just so. She shall. If
he wanted he could make all the Da Souza family get up. He had
only to say a word and they would all come and sit silently in
their night vestments on the hard, cold ground of his compound
and listen, as long as he wished to go on explaining to them from
the top of the stairs, how great and good he was. They would.
However, his wife would do--for to-night.
His wife! He winced inwardly. A dismal woman with startled eyes
and dolorously drooping mouth, that would listen to him in pained
wonder and mute stillness. She was used to those night-discourses
now. She had rebelled once--at the beginning. Only once. Now,
while he sprawled in the long chair and drank and talked, she
would stand at the further end of the table, her hands resting on
the edge, her frightened eyes watching his lips, without a sound,
without a stir, hardly breathing, till he dismissed her with a
contemptuous: "Go to bed, dummy." She would draw a long breath
then and trail out of the room, relieved but unmoved. Nothing
could startle her, make her scold or make her cry. She did not
complain, she did not rebel. That first difference of theirs was
decisive. Too decisive, thought Willems, discontentedly. It had
frightened the soul out of her body apparently. A dismal woman!
A damn'd business altogether! What the devil did he want to go
and saddle himself. . . . Ah! Well! he wanted a home, and the
match seemed to please Hudig, and Hudig gave him the bungalow,
that flower-bowered house to which he was wending his way in the
cool moonlight. And he had the worship of the Da Souza tribe. A
man of his stamp could carry off anything, do anything, aspire to
anything. In another five years those white people who attended
the Sunday card-parties of the Governor would accept
him--half-caste wife and all! Hooray! He saw his shadow dart
forward and wave a hat, as big as a rum barrel, at the end of an
arm several yards long. . . . Who shouted hooray? . . . He
smiled shamefacedly to himself, and, pushing his hands deep into
his pockets, walked faster with a suddenly grave face.
Behind him--to the left--a cigar end glowed in the gateway of Mr.
Vinck's front yard. Leaning against one of the brick pillars,
Mr. Vinck, the cashier of Hudig & Co., smoked the last cheroot of
the evening. Amongst the shadows of the trimmed bushes Mrs.
Vinck crunched slowly, with measured steps, the gravel of the
circular path before the house.
"There's Willems going home on foot--and drunk I fancy," said Mr.
Vinck over his shoulder. "I saw him jump and wave his hat."
The crunching of the gravel stopped.
"Horrid man," said Mrs. Vinck, calmly. "I have heard he beats
his wife."
"Oh no, my dear, no," muttered absently Mr. Vinck, with a vague
gesture. The aspect of Willems as a wife-beater presented to him
no interest. How women do misjudge! If Willems wanted to
torture his wife he would have recourse to less primitive
methods. Mr. Vinck knew Willems well, and believed him to be
very able, very smart--objectionably so. As he took the last
quick draws at the stump of his cheroot, Mr. Vinck reflected that
the confidence accorded by Hudig to Willems was open, under the
circumstances, to loyal criticism from Hudig's cashier.
"He is becoming dangerous; he knows too much. He will have to be
got rid of," said Mr. Vinck aloud. But Mrs. Vinck had gone in
already, and after shaking his head he threw away his cheroot and
followed her slowly.
Willems walked on homeward weaving the splendid web of his
future. The road to greatness lay plainly before his eyes,
straight and shining, without any obstacle that he could see. He
had stepped off the path of honesty, as he understood it, but he
would soon regain it, never to leave it any more! It was a very
small matter. He would soon put it right again. Meantime his
duty was not to be found out, and he trusted in his skill, in his
luck, in his well-established reputation that would disarm
suspicion if anybody dared to suspect. But nobody would dare!
True, he was conscious of a slight deterioration. He had
appropriated temporarily some of Hudig's money. A deplorable
necessity. But he judged himself with the indulgence that should
be extended to the weaknesses of genius. He would make
reparation and all would be as before; nobody would be the loser
for it, and he would go on unchecked toward the brilliant goal of
his ambition.
Hudig's partner!
Before going up the steps of his house he stood for awhile, his
feet well apart, chin in hand, contemplating mentally Hudig's
future partner. A glorious occupation. He saw him quite safe;
solid as the hills; deep--deep as an abyss; discreet as the
grave.
