A Note on “Romance”
Writing to his Collaborator in a letter published in the _Transatlantic
Review_ for January, 1924, Mr. Conrad makes the following ascription of
passages in the work above named:
First Part, yours; Second Part, mainly yours, with a little by me on
points of seamanship and suchlike small matters; Third Part, about 60
percent mine with important touches by you; Fourth Part, mine with
here and there an important sentence by you; Fifth Part practically
all yours, including the famous sentence at which we both exclaimed:
“This is Genius,” (Do you remember what it is?) with perhaps half a
dozen lines by me....
Mr. Conrad’s recollections--except for the generosity of his two
“importants”--tally well enough with those of his Collaborator if
conception alone is concerned. When it comes however to the writing the
truth is that Parts One, Two, Three and Five are a singular mosaic of
passages written alternately by one or other of the collaborators. The
matchless Fourth Part is both in conception and writing entirely the
work of Mr. Conrad.
Below will be found the analysis of “Romance.” Any student of
literature with an ear for prose will hardly need these underlinings,
for Mr. Conrad’s definitenesses of statement stand out amongst his
Collaborator’s more English keyings down so that when one of his half
sentences bursts into the no doubt suaver prose of the other it is as
if the page comes to life and speaks.
Every collaboration is a contest of temperaments if it be at all
thoroughly carried out; and this collaboration was carried out so
thoroughly that, even when the book came to the proof stage, the
original publishers, half way through the printing, sent the MS. back
to the authors. They were still making innumerable corrections.
Originally conceived, in the attempt to convey realistically a real
story of adventure recorded in a State Trial, as the thin tale of a
very old man--and this before the question of collaboration arose--the
book contains of its first version only the two opening sentences--and
the single other sentence: “And, looking back, we see Romance!” In
between lay to say the least of it almost unbelievable labours--a
contest of attrition lasting over several years. For insofar as this
collaboration was a contest of wills it was a very friendly one; yet
it was the continual attempt on the part of the one collaborator to
key up and of the other to key down. And so exhausting was the contest
that in the course of the years two definite breakdowns occurred. In
the first the robuster writer let the book called “The Inheritors” just
go and it remains a monument as it were of silverpoint, delicacies
and allusiveness. The second breakdown is recorded in the Fourth Part
of “Romance,” sketches for which were written over and over--and then
over--again, until the weaker brother, in absolute exhaustion, in
turn let it go at that. So, to mark those breaking points, you have
the silverpoint of “The Inheritors” set against the, let us say,
oil-painting of this matchless Fourth Part.
“The Nature of a Crime” should have become a novel treating of the
eternal subject of the undetected criminal--a theme which every writer
for once or twice in his life at least contemplates in a world in which
the fortunate are so very often the merely not found out. The courage
of few writers carries them even beyond the contemplation; in this case
the joint courages of the authors went as far as what you may read.
The passage from the Fifth Part of “Romance” printed below contains the
“famous sentence” as to which Mr. Conrad writes: “We both exclaimed:
‘This is genius’.”
Joseph Conrad in Italics; F. M. Hueffer in Roman type.
_Part One: Chapter One._
_To yesterday and to-day I say my polite “vaya usted con dios.”
What are these days to me?_ But that far-off day of my romance,
when from between _the blue and white bales in Don Ramon’s darkened
storeroom, at Kingston_, I saw the door open before the figure of _an
old man with the tired, long, white face_, that day I am not likely
to forget. I remember _the chilly smell of the typical West Indian
store_, the indescribable _smell of damp gloom, of locos, of pimento,
of olive oil, of new sugar, of new rum; the glassy double sheen of
Ramon’s great spectacles, the piercing eyes in the mahogany face_,
while the tap, tap, tap of a cane on the flags went on behind the
inner door; _the click of the latch; the stream of light_. The door,
petulantly thrust inwards, struck against some barrels. I remember
the rattling of the bolts on that door, and _the tall figure_ that
appeared there, _snuff-box in hand. In that land of white clothes
that precise, ancient, Castilian in black was something to remember.
The black cane that had made the tap, tap, tap dangled by a silken
cord from the hand whose delicate blue-veined, wrinkled wrist ran
back into a foam of lawn ruffles._ The other hand paused in the act
of conveying a pinch of snuff to the nostrils of the _hooked nose
that had, on the skin stretched tight over the bridge, the polish of
old ivory; the elbow pressing the black cocked hat against the side;
the legs, one bent, the other bowing a little back_--this was the
attitude of Seraphina’s father.
Having imperiously thrust the door of the inner room open, he
remained immovable, with no intention of entering, and called in
a harsh, aged voice: “Señor Ramon! Señor Ramon!” and then twice:
“Seraphina--Seraphina!” turning his head back.
_Then for the first time I saw Seraphina, looking over her father’s
shoulder._ I remember her face of that day; _her eyes were grey--the
grey of black, not of blue. For a moment they looked me straight
in the face, reflectively, unconcerned, and then travelled to the
spectacles of old Ramon._
This glance--remember I was young on that day--had been enough to set
me wondering what they were thinking of me; what they could have seen
of me.
“But there he is your Señor Ramon,” she said to her father, _as if
she were chiding him for a petulance in calling_; “your sight is not
very good, my poor little father--there he is, your Ramon.”
_The warm reflection of the light behind her, gilding the curve of
her face from ear to chin, lost itself in the shadows of black lace
falling from dark hair that was not quite black. She spoke as if the
words clung to her lips; as if she had to put them forth delicately
for fear of damaging the frail things._
* * * * *
_Part One: Chapter Five._
_Macdonald cleared his throat, with a sound resembling the coughing
of a defective pump, and a mere trickle of a voice_ asked:
“_Hwhat evidence have ye of identitee?_”
_I hadn’t any at all and began to finger my buttonholes as
shame-faced as a pauper before a Board. The certitude dawned upon me
suddenly that Carlos, even if he would consent to swear to me, would
prejudice my chances._
I cannot help thinking that _I came very near to being cast adrift
upon the streets of Kingston. To my asseverations Macdonald returned
nothing but a series of minute “humphs.” I don’t know what overcame
his scruples; he had shown no signs of yielding, but suddenly turning
on his heel_ made a motion with one of his flabby white hands. I
understood it to mean that I was to follow him aft.
The decks were covered with a jabbering turmoil of negroes with
muscular arms and brawny shoulders. All their shining faces seemed to
be momentarily gashed open to show rows of white, and were spotted
with inlaid eyeballs. The sounds coming from them were a bewildering
noise. They were hauling baggage about aimlessly. _A large soft
bundle of bedding nearly took me off my legs._ There wasn’t room for
emotion. Macdonald laid about him with the handle of the umbrella a
few inches from the deck; but the passage that he made for himself
closed behind him.
_Suddenly, in the pushing and hurrying, I came upon a little clear
space beside a pile of boxes. Stooping over them was the angular
figure of Nichols, the second mate. He looked up at me, screwing his
yellow eyes together._
_“Going ashore,” he asked, “long of that Puffing Billy?”_
“What business is it of yours?” I mumbled sulkily.
_Sudden and intense threatening came into his_ yellow _eyes_.
_“Don’t you ever come to_ you know where,” _he said; “I don’t want no
spies on what I do. There’s a man there’ll crack your little backbone
if he catches you. Don’t yeh come now. Never.”_
* * * * *
_Part Four: Chapter One._
In my anxiety to keep clear of the schooner which, for all I know to
this day, may not have been there at all, I had come too close to
the sand, so close that I heard soft, rapid footfalls stop short in
the fog. A voice seemed to be asking me in a whisper:
“Where, oh, where?”
Another cried out irresistibly, “I see it.”
It was a subdued cry, as if hushed in awe.
My arm swung to and fro; the turn of my wrist went on imparting the
propelling motion of the oar. All the rest of my body was gripped
helplessly in the dead expectation of the end, as if in the benumbing
seconds of a fall from a towering height. And it was swift, too.
I felt a draught at the back of my neck--a breath of wind. And
instantly, as if a battering ram had been let swing past me at many
layers of stretched gauze, I beheld, through a tattered deep hole
in the fog, a roaring vision of flames, borne down and swimming up
again; a dance of purple gleams on the strip of unveiled water, and
three coal black figures in the light.
One of them stood high on lank black legs, with long black arms
thrown up stiffly above the black shape of a hat. The two others
crouched low on the very edge of the water, peering as if from an
ambush.
The clearness of this vision was contained by a thick and a fiery
atmosphere, into which a soft white rush and swirl of fog fell like
a sudden whirl of snow. It closed down and overwhelmed at once the
tall flutter of the flames, the black figures, the purple gleams
playing round my oar. The hot glare had struck my eyeballs once, and
that melted away again into the old, fiery stain on the mended fabric
of the fog. But the attitudes of the crouching men left no room
for doubt that we had been seen. I expected a sudden uplifting of
voices on the shore, answered by cries from the sea, and I screamed
excitedly at Castro to lay hold of his oar.
He did not stir, and after my shouts, which must have fallen on the
scared ears with a weird and unearthly note, a profound silence
attended us--the silence of a superstitious fear: And, instead of
howls, I heard, before the boat had travelled its own short length,
a voice that seemed to be the voice of fear itself asking, “Did
you hear that?” and a trembling mutter of an invocation to all the
saints. Then a strangled throat trying to pronounce firmly, “The soul
of the dead Inglez. Crying for pain.”
Admiral Rowley’s seamen, so miserably thrown away in the
ill-conceived attack on the bay, were making a ghostly escort to our
escape. Those dead boats’-crews were supposed to haunt the fatal
spot, after the manner of spectres that linger in remorse, regret,
or revenge, about the gates of departure. I had blundered; the fog,
breaking apart, had betrayed us. But my obscure and vanquished
country-men held possession of the outlet by memory of their courage.
In this critical moment it was they, I may say, who stood by us.
We, on our part, must have been disclosed, dark, indistinct, utterly
inexplicable; completely unexpected; an apparition of stealthy
shades. The painful voice in the fog said:
“Let them be. Answer not. They shall pass on, for none of them died
on the shore--all in the water. Yes, all in the water.”
* * * * *
_Part Five: Chapter One._
“_Why have I been brought here your worship?_” I asked with a great
deal of firmness.
_There were two figures in black, the one beside, the other behind a
large black table. I was placed in front of them between two dirty
soldiers, in the centre of a large, gaunt room, with bare, dirty
walls, and the arms of Spain above the judge’s seat._
_“You are before the Juez de la Primera Instancia,” said the man in
black beside the table. He wore a large and shadowy tricorn. “Be
silent, and respect the procedure.”_
It was, without doubt, excellent advice. _He whispered some words in
the ear of the Judge of the First Instance. It was plain enough to
me that the judge was quite an inferior official, who merely decided
whether there was any case against the accused_; he had, even to his
clerk, an air of timidity, of doubt.
_I said: “But I insist on knowing....”_
_The clerk said: “In good time....” And then_, in the same tone of
disinterested official routine, _he spoke to the Lugareño, who, from
beside the door_, rolled very frightened eyes _from the judges and
the clerk to myself and the soldiers_--“Advance.”
_The judge, in a hurried, perfunctory voice, put questions to the
Lugareño; the clerk scratched with a large quill on a sheet of paper._
“_Where do you come from?_”
“_The town of Rio Medio, excellency._”
“_Of what occupation?_”
“_Excellency--a few goats._...”
“_Why are you here?_”
“_My daughter, excellency, married Pepe of the posada in the
Calle._...”
_The judge said, “Yes, yes,”_ with an unsanguine impatience. The
Lugareño’s dirty hands jumped nervously on the large rim of his limp
hat.
“_You lodge a complaint against the señor there._”
_The clerk pointed the end of his quill towards me._
_“I? God forbid, excellency,” the Lugareño bleated._ “The Alguazil
of the Criminal Court instructed me to be watchful....”
* * * * *
_Part Five: The End._
_A long time after a harsh voice said_:
“_Your excellency, we retire, of course, from the prosecution._”
_A different one directed_:
“_Gentlemen of the jury you will return a verdict of ‘Not
Guilty’._...”
_Down below they were cheering uproariously because my life was
saved. But it was I that had to face my saved life. I sat there, my
head bowed into my hands. The old judge was speaking to me in a tone
of lofty compassion_:
“_You have suffered much, as it seems, but suffering is the lot of us
men. Rejoice now that your character is cleared; that here in this
public place you have received the verdict of your country-men that
restores you to the liberties of our country and the affection of
your kindred. I rejoice with you who am a very old man at the end of
my life._...”
_It was rather tremendous, his deep voice, his weighted words.
Suffering is the lot of us men.... The formidable legal array, the
great powers of a nation, had stood up to teach me that, and they had
taught me that--suffering is the lot of us men!_
* * * * *
_It takes long enough to realise that someone is dead at a distance.
I had done that. But how long, how long it needs to know that the
life of your heart has come back from the dead._ For years afterwards
I could not bear to have her out of my sight.
Of our first meeting in London all I can remember is a speechlessness
that was like the awed hesitation of our overtried souls before the
greatness of a change from the verge of despair to the opening of a
supreme joy. The whole world, the whole of life, with her return had
changed all around me; it enveloped me, it enfolded me so lightly as
not to be felt, so suddenly as not to be believed in, so completely
that that whole meeting was an embrace, so softly that at last it
lapsed into a sense of rest that was like the fall of a beneficent
and welcome death.
_For suffering is the lot of man_, but not inevitable failure or
worthless despair which is without end--suffering, the mark of
manhood, which bears within its pain a hope of felicity like a jewel
set in iron....
Her first words were:
“You broke our compact. You went away from me whilst I was sleeping.”
Only the deepness of her reproach revealed the depth of her love, and
the suffering she too had endured to reach a union that was to be
without end--and to forgive.
_And, looking back, we see Romance--that subtle thing that is
mirage--that is life. It is the goodness of the years we have lived
through, of the old time when we did this or that, when we dwelt here
or there. Looking back it seems a wonderful enough thing that I who
am this and she who is that, commencing so far away a life that after
such sufferings borne together and apart, ended so tranquilly there
in a world so stable--that she and I should have passed through so
much, good chance and evil chance, sad hours and joyful, all lived
down and swept away into the little heap of dust that is life. That,
too, is Romance._