II

The form in which Conrad has chosen to develop his narratives is the

question which must always come first in any consideration of him as a

novelist; the question of his form is the ground upon which he has been

most frequently attacked.

His difficulties in this matter have all arisen, as I have already

suggested, from his absorbing interest in life. Let us imagine, for

an instant, an imaginary case. He has seen in some foreign port a

quarrel between two seamen. One has "knifed" the other, and the

quarrel has been watched, with complete indifference, by a young girl

and a bibulous old wastrel who is obviously a relation both of hers

and of the stricken seaman. The author sees here a case for his art

and, wishing to give us the matter with the greatest possible truth

and accuracy, he begins, _oratio recta_, by the narration of a little

barber whose shop is just over the spot where the quarrel took place

and whose lodgers the old man and the girl are. He describes the

little barber and is, at once, amazed by the interesting facts that he

discovers about the man. Seen standing in his doorway he is the most

ordinary little figure, but once investigate his case and you find a

strange contrast between his melancholy romanticism and the flashing

fanaticism of his love for the young girl who lodges with him. That

leads one back, through many years, to the moment of his first meeting

with the bibulous old man, and for a witness of that we must hunt out

a villainous old woman who keeps a drinking saloon in another part of

the town. This old woman, now so drink-sodden and degraded, had once a

history of her own. Once she was ...

And so the matter continues. It is not so much a deliberate evocation

of the most difficult of methods, this manner of narration, as

a poignant witness to Conrad's own breathless surprise at his

discoveries. Mr Henry James, speaking of this enforced collection of

oratorical witnesses, says: "It places Mr Conrad absolutely alone as a

votary of the way to do a thing that shall make it undergo most doing,"

and his amazement at Conrad's patient pursuit of unneeded difficulties

may seem to us the stranger if we consider that in _What Maisie Knew_

and _The Awkward Age_ he has practised almost precisely the same

form himself. Indeed beside the intricate but masterly form of _The

Awkward Age_ the duplicate narration of _Chance_ seems child's-play. Mr

Henry James makes the mistake of speaking as though Conrad had quite

deliberately chosen the form of narration that was most difficult to

him, simply for the fun of overcoming the difficulties, the truth being

that he has chosen the easiest, the form of narration brought straight

from the sea and the ships that he adored, the form of narration used

by the Ancient Mariner and all the seamen before and after him. Conrad

must have his direct narrator, because that is the way in which stories

in the past had generally come to him. He wishes to deny the effect of

that direct and simple honesty that had always seemed so attractive

to him. He must have it by word of mouth, because it is by word of

mouth that he himself has always demanded it, and if one witness is not

enough for the truth of it then must he have two or three.

Consider for a moment the form of three of his most important novels:

_Lord Jim, Nostromo_ and _Chance_. It is possible that _Lord Jim_ was

conceived originally as a sketch of character, derived by the author

from one scene that was, in all probability, an actual reminiscence.

Certainly, when the book is finished, one scene beyond all others

remains with the reader; the scene of the inquiry into the loss of

the _Patna_, or rather the vision of Jim and his appalling companions

waiting outside for the inquiry to begin. Simply in the contemplation

of these four men Conrad has his desired contrast; the skipper of

the _Patna_: "He made me think of a trained baby elephant walking

on hind-legs. He was extravagantly gorgeous too--got up in a soiled

sleeping-suit, bright green and deep orange vertical stripes, with

a pair of ragged straw slippers on his bare feet, and somebody's

cast-off pith hat, very dirty and two sizes too small for him, tied up

with a manilla rope-yarn on the top of his big head." There are also

two other "no-account chaps with him"--a sallow-faced mean little chap

with his arm in a sling, and a long individual in a blue flannel coat,

as dry as a chip and no stouter than a broomstick, with drooping grey

moustaches, who looked about him with an air of jaunty imbecility, and,

with these three, Jim, "clean-limbed, clean-faced, firm on his feet, as

promising a boy as the sun ever shone on." Here are these four, in the

same box, condemned for ever by all right-thinking men. That boy in the

same box as those obscene scoundrels! At once the artist has fastened

on to his subject, it bristles with active, vital possibilities and

discoveries. We, the observers, share the artist's thrill. We watch

our author dart upon a subject with the excitement of adventurers

discovering a gold mine. How much will it yield? How deep will it go?

We are thrilled with the suspense.

Conrad, having discovered his subject, must, for the satisfaction of

that honour which is his most deeply cherished virtue, prove to us his

authenticity. "I was not there myself," he tells us, "but I can show

you someone who was." He introduces us to a first-hand witness, Marlowe

or another. "Now tell your story." He has at once the atmosphere in

which he is happiest, and so, having his audience clustered about him,

unlimited time at everyone's disposal, whiskies and cigars without

stint, he lets himself go. He is bothered now by no question but the

thorough investigation of his discovery. What had Jim done that he

should be in such a case? We must have the story of the loss of the

_Patna_, that marvellous journey across the waters, all the world of

the pilgrims, the obscene captain and Jim's fine, chivalrous soul.

Marlowe is inexhaustible. He has so much to say and so many fine words

in which to say it. At present, so absorbed are we, so successful is

he, that we are completely held. The illusion is perfect. We come to

the inquiry. One of the judges is Captain Brierley. "What! not know

Captain Brierley! Ah! but I must tell you! Most extraordinary thing!"

The world grows around us; a world that can contain the captain of the

_Patna_, Brierley and Jim at the same time! The subject before us seems

now so rich that we are expecting to see it burst, at any moment, in

the author's hands, but so long as that first visualised scene is the

centre of the episode, so long as the experience hovers round that

inquiry and the Esplanade outside it, we are held, breathless and

believing. We believe even in the eloquent Marlowe. Then the moment

passes. Every possible probe into its heart has been made. We are

satisfied.

There follows then the sequel, and here at once the weakness of the

method is apparent. The author having created his narrator must

continue with him. Marlowe is there, untired, eager, waiting to begin

again. But the trouble is that we are no longer assured now of the

truth and reality of his story. He saw--we cannot for an instant

doubt it--that group on the Esplanade; all that he could tell us about

that we, breathlessly, awaited. But now we are uncertain whether he

is not inventing a romantic sequel. He must go on--that is the truly

terrible thing about Marlowe--and at the moment when we question his

authenticity we are suspicious of his very existence, ready to be

irritated by his flow of words demanding something more authentic than

that voice that is now only dimly heard. The author himself perhaps

feels this; he duplicates, he even trebles his narrators and with

each fresh agent raises a fresh crop of facts, contrasts, habits and

histories. That then is the peril of the method. Whilst we believe we

are completely held, but let the authenticity waver for a moment and

the danger of disaster is more excessive than with any other possible

form of narration. Create your authority and we have at once someone at

whom we may throw stones if we are not beguiled. Marlowe has certainly

been compelled to face, at moments in his career, an angry, irritated

audience.

_Nostromo_ is, for the reason that we never lose our confidence in

the narrator, a triumphant vindication of these methods. That is not

to deny that _Nostromo_ is extremely confused in places, but it is a

confusion that arises rather from Conrad's confidence in the reader's

fore-knowledge of the facts than in a complication of narrations. The

narrations are sometimes complicated--old Captain Mitchell does not

always achieve authenticity--but on the whole, the reader may be said

to be puzzled, simply because he is told so much about some things and

so little about others.

But this assurance of the author's that we must have already learnt

the main facts of the case comes from his own convinced sense of the

reality of it. This time he has no Marlowe. He was there himself. "Of

course," he says to us, "you know all about that revolution in Sulaco,

that revolution that the Goulds were mixed up with. Well, I happened

to be there myself. I know all the people concerned, and the central

figure was not Gould, nor Mitchell, nor Monyngham--no, it was a man

about whom no one outside the republic was told a syllable. I knew the

man well.... He ..." and there we all are.

The method is, in this case, as I have already said, completely

successful. There may be confusions, there may be scenes concerning

which we may be expected to be told much and are, in truth, told

nothing at all, but these confusions and omissions do, in the end, only

add to our conviction of the veracity of it. No one, after a faithful

perusal of _Nostromo_, can possibly doubt of the existence of Sulaco,

of the silver mine, of Nostromo and Decoud, of Mrs Gould, Antonio, the

Viola girls, of old Viola, Hirsch, Monyngham, Gould, Sotillo, of the

death of Viola's wife, of the expedition at night in the painter, of

Decoud alone on the Isabels, of Hirsch's torture, of Captain Mitchell's

watch--here are characters the most romantic in the world, scenes that

would surely, in any other hands, be fantastic melodrama, and both

characters and scenes are absolutely supported on the foundation of

realistic truth. Not for a moment from the first page to the last do we

consciously doubt the author's word.... Here the form of narration is

vindicated because it is entirely convincing.

Not so with the third example, _Chance_. Here, as with _Lord Jim_, we

may find one visualised moment that stands for the whole book and as

in the earlier work we look back and see the degraded officers of the

_Patna_ waiting with Jim on the Esplanade, so our glance back over

_Chance_ reveals to us that moment when the Fynes, from the security

of their comfortable home, watch Flora de Barrel flying down the steps

of her horrible Brighton house as though the Furies pursued her. That

desperate flight is the key of the book. The moment of the chivalrous

Captain Anthony's rescue of Flora from a world too villainous for her

and too double-faced for him gives the book's theme, and never in all

the stories that preceded Flora's has Conrad been so eager to afford

us first-hand witnesses. We have, in the first place, the unquenchable

Marlowe sitting, with fine phrases at his lips, in a riverside inn.

To him enter Powell, who once served with Captain Anthony; to these

two add the little Fynes; there surely you have enough to secure your

alliance. But it is precisely the number of witnesses that frightens

us. Marlowe, unaided, would have been enough for us, more than enough

if we are to consider the author himself as a possible narrator. But

not only does the number frighten us, it positively hides from us the

figures of Captain Anthony and Flora de Barrel. Both the Knight and the

Maiden--as the author names them--are retiring souls, and our hearts

move in sympathy for them as we contemplate their timid hesitancy

before the voluble inquisitions of Marlowe, young Powell and the Fynes.

Moreover, the intention of this method that it should secure realistic

conviction for the most romantic episodes does not here achieve its

purpose, as we have seen that it did in the first half of _Lord Jim_

and the whole of _Nostromo_. We believe most emphatically in that first

narration of young Powell's about his first chance. We believe in the

first narration of Marlowe, although quite casually he talks like this:

"I do not even think that there was in what he did a conscious and

lofty confidence in himself, a particularly pronounced sense of power

which leads men so often into impossible or equivocal situations." We

believe in the horrible governess (a fiercely drawn figure). We believe

in Marlowe's interview with Flora on the pavement outside Anthony's

room.

We believe in the whole of the first half of the book, but even here

we are conscious that we would prefer to be closer to the whole

thing, that it would be pleasant to hear Flora and Anthony speak

for themselves, that we resent, a little, Marlowe's intimacy which

prevents, with patronising complaisance, the intimacy that we, the

readers, might have seemed. Nevertheless we are so far held, we are

captured.

But when the second half of the book arrives we can be confident no

longer. Here, as in _Lord Jim_, it is possible to feel that Conrad,

having surprised, seized upon, mastered his original moment, did not

know how to continue it. The true thing in _Lord Jim_ is the affair of

the _Patna_; the true thing in _Chance_ is Captain Anthony's rescue

of Flora after her disaster. But whereas in _Lord Jim_ the sequel to

Jim's cowardice has its own fine qualities of beauty and imagination,

the sequel to Captain Anthony's rescue of Flora seems to one listener

at any rate a pitiably unconvincing climax of huddled melodrama. That

chapter in _Chance_ entitled _A Moonless Night_ is, in the first

half of it, surely the worst thing that Conrad ever wrote, save only

that one early short story, _The Return_. The conclusion of _Chance_

and certain tales in his volume, _Within the Tides_, make one wonder

whether that alliance between romance and realism that he has hitherto

so wonderfully maintained is not breaking down before the baleful

strength of the former of these two qualities.

It remains only to be said that when credence so entirely fails, as

it must before the end of _Chance_, the form of narration in _Oratio

Recta_ is nothing less than maddening. Suddenly we do not believe in

Marlowe, in Powell, in the Fynes: we do not believe even in Anthony

and Flora. We are the angrier because earlier in the evening we were

so completely taken in. It is as though we had given our money to a

deserving cause and discovered a charlatan.

I have described at length the form in which the themes of these books

are developed, because it is the form that, here extensively, here

quite unobtrusively, clothes all the novels and tales. We are caught

and held by the skinny finger of the Ancient Mariner. When he has a

true tale to tell us his veritable presence is an added zest to our

pleasure. But, if his presence be not true ...