II

{040}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 teen 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 {041}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 wo 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 maimer 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 {042}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 alter 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 {043}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 {044}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. {045}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. {046}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 do longer assured now of the truth

and {047}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, halts 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

{048}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 contused 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 {049}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 {050}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 {051}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 fin 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 {052}_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 {053}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.

{054}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...