第9章

He was not a cold,but a calm man,still more subdued by disease--a man of few words and of an unassuming modesty in general intercourse,but with something uncommon in the whole of his person which set him apart from the undistinguished lot of our sixty passengers.His eyes had a thoughtful,introspective look.In his attractive reserved manner and in a veiled sympathetic voice he asked:

"What is this?""It is a sort of tale,"I answered,with an effort."It is not even finished yet.Nevertheless,I would like to know what you think of it."He put the MS.in the breast-pocket of his jacket;I remember perfectly his thin,brown fingers folding it lengthwise."I will read it to-morrow,"he remarked,seizing the door handle;and then watching the roll of the ship for a propitious moment,he opened the door and was gone.In the moment of his exit I heard the sustained booming of the wind,the swish of the water on the decks of the Torrens,and the subdued,as if distant,roar of the rising sea.I noted the growing disquiet in the great restlessness of the ocean,and responded professionally to it with the thought that at eight o'clock,in another half hour or so at the farthest,the topgallant sails would have to come off the ship.

Next day,but this time in the first dog watch,Jacques entered my cabin.He had a thick woollen muffler round his throat,and the MS.was in his hand.He tendered it to me with a steady look,but without a word.I took it in silence.He sat down on the couch and still said nothing.I opened and shut a drawer under my desk,on which a filled-up log-slate lay wide open in its wooden frame waiting to be copied neatly into the sort of book I was accustomed to write with care,the ship's log-book.I turned my back squarely on the desk.And even then Jacques never offered a word."Well,what do you say?"I asked at last."Is it worth finishing?"This question expressed exactly the whole of my thoughts.

"Distinctly,"he answered,in his sedate,veiled voice,and then coughed a little.

"Were you interested?"I inquired further,almost in a whisper.

"Very much!"

In a pause I went on meeting instinctively the heavy rolling of the ship,and Jacques put his feet upon the couch.The curtain of my bed-place swung to and fro as if it were a punkah,the bulkhead lamp circled in its gimbals,and now and then the cabin door rattled slightly in the gusts of wind.It was in latitude 40south,and nearly in the longitude of Greenwich,as far as I can remember,that these quiet rites of Almayer's and Nina's resurrection were taking place.In the prolonged silence it occurred to me that there was a good deal of retrospective writing in the story as far as it went.Was it intelligible in its action,I asked myself,as if already the story-teller were being born into the body of a seaman.But I heard on deck the whistle of the officer of the watch and remained on the alert to catch the order that was to follow this call to attention.It reached me as a faint,fierce shout to "Square the yards.""Aha!"

I thought to myself,"a westerly blow coming on."Then I turned to my very first reader,who,alas!was not to live long enough to know the end of the tale.

"Now let me ask you one more thing:is the story quite clear to you as it stands?"

He raised his dark,gentle eyes to my face and seemed surprised.

"Yes!Perfectly."

This was all I was to hear from his lips concerning the merits of "Almayer's Folly."We never spoke together of the book again.Along period of bad weather set in and I had no thoughts left but for my duties,while poor Jacques caught a fatal cold and had to keep close in his cabin.When we arrived in Adelaide the first reader of my prose went at once up-country,and died rather suddenly in the end,either in Australia or it may be on the passage while going home through the Suez Canal.I am not sure which it was now,and I do not think I ever heard precisely;

Though I made inquiries about him from some of our return passengers who,wandering about to "see the country"during the ship's stay in port,had come upon him here and there.At last we sailed,homeward bound,and still not one line was added to the careless scrawl of the many pages which poor Jacques had had the patience to read with the very shadows of Eternity gathering already in the hollows of his kind,steadfast eyes.

The purpose instilled into me by his simple and final "Distinctly"remained dormant,yet alive to await its opportunity.I dare say I am compelled--unconsciously compelled--now to write volume after volume,as in past years I was compelled to go to sea voyage after voyage.Leaves must follow upon one an other as leagues used to follow in the days gone by,on and on to the appointed end,which,being Truth itself,is One--one for all men and for all occupations.

I do not know which of the two impulses has appeared more mysterious and more wonderful to me.Still,in writing,as in going to sea,I had to wait my opportunity.Let me confess here that I was never one of those wonderful fellows that would go afloat in a wash-tub for the sake of the fun,and if I may pride myself upon my consistency,it was ever just the same with my writing.Some men,I have heard,write in railway carriages,and could do it,perhaps,sitting crossed-legged on a clothes-line;but I must confess that my sybaritic disposition will not consent to write without something at least resembling a chair.Line by line,rather than page by page,was the growth of "Almayer's Folly."

And so it happened that I very nearly lost the MS.,advanced now to the first words of the ninth chapter,in the Friedrichstrasse Poland,or more precisely to Ukraine.On an early,sleepy morning changing trains in a hurry I left my Gladstone bag in a refreshment-room.A worthy and intelligent Koffertrager rescued it.Yet in my anxiety I was not thinking of the MS.,but of all the other things that were packed in the bag.