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Youth, a Narrative-Joseph Conrad · Heart of Darkness

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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot o r G. This reading by Chris
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  Speaker 1: Hughes read ere dot blogspot dot com. Youth a narrative
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  Speaker 1: by Joseph Conrad, Part one, But the dwarf answered, no,
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  Speaker 1: something human is dearer to me than the wealth of
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  Speaker 1: all the world. Grimm's Tales to my wife Youth. This
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  Speaker 1: could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and
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  Speaker 1: c interpenetrate, so to speak, the sea entering into the
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  Speaker 1: life of most men, and the men knowing something or
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  Speaker 1: everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel,
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  Speaker 1: or of bread winning. We were sitting round a mahogany
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  Speaker 1: table that reflected the bottle, the claret glasses, and our
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  Speaker 1: faces as we leaned on our elbows. There was a
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  Speaker 1: director of companies, an accountant, a lawyer, Marlowe, and myself.
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  Speaker 1: The director had been a Conway boy, the accountant had
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  Speaker 1: served four years at sea, the lawyer a fine crusted
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  Speaker 1: Tory high churchmen, the best of old fellows. The soul
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  Speaker 1: of honor had been chief officer in the PI andot
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  Speaker 1: service in the good old days, when mail boats were
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  Speaker 1: square rigged at least on two masts, and used to
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  Speaker 1: come down the China Sea before a fair mon soon,
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  Speaker 1: with stunsels set to low and aloft. We all began
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  Speaker 1: life in the merchant service. Between the five of us
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  Speaker 1: there was the strong bond of the sea, and also
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  Speaker 1: the fellowship of the craft, which no amount of enthusiasm
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  Speaker 1: for yachting cruising and some one can give, since one
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  Speaker 1: is only the amusement of life, and the other is
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  Speaker 1: life itself. Marlowe, at least I think that's how he
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  Speaker 1: spelt his name, told the story, or rather the chronicle
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  Speaker 1: of a voyage. Yes, I've seen a little of the
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  Speaker 1: Eastern Seas, but what I remember best is my first
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  Speaker 1: voyage there. You fellows know there are those voyages that
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  Speaker 1: seem ordered for the illustration of life, that might stand
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  Speaker 1: for a symbol of existence. You fight, work, sweat, nearly
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  Speaker 1: kill yourself, sometimes do kill yourself trying to accomplish something,
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  Speaker 1: and you can't, not from any fault of yours. You
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  Speaker 1: simply can do nothing, neither great nor little, not a
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  Speaker 1: thing in the world, not even marry an old maid
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  Speaker 1: or get a wretched six hundred tongue cargo of coal
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  Speaker 1: to its port of destination. It was altogether a memorable affair.
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  Speaker 1: It was my first voyage to the east, and my
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  Speaker 1: first voyager, second mate. It was also my skipper's first command.
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  Speaker 1: You'll admit it was time. He was sixty if a day,
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  Speaker 1: a little man with a broad not very straight back,
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  Speaker 1: with bowed shoulders and one leg more banded than the other.
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  Speaker 1: He had that queer twisted about appearance you see so
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  Speaker 1: often in men who work in the fields. He had
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  Speaker 1: a nutcracker face, chin and nose trying to come together
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  Speaker 1: over a sunkened mouth, and it was framed in iron
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  Speaker 1: gray fluffy hair that looked like a chin strap of
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  Speaker 1: cotton wool sprinkled with coal dust. And he had blue
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  Speaker 1: eyes in that old face of his, which were amazingly
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  Speaker 1: like a boy's with that candid expression. Some quite common
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  Speaker 1: men preserved to the end of their days by a
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  Speaker 1: rare internal gift of simplicity of heart and rectitude of soul.
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  Speaker 1: What induced him to accept me was a wonder. I'd
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  Speaker 1: come out of a crack Australian clipper where I've been
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  Speaker 1: third officer, and he seemed to have a prejudice against
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  Speaker 1: crack clippers as aristocratic and high toned. He said to me,
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  Speaker 1: you know, in this ship you'll have to work. I said,
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  Speaker 1: I had to work in every ship I'd ever been in. Ah,
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  Speaker 1: but this is different a you gentlemen out of them
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  Speaker 1: big ships. But there I dy say, you'll do join
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  Speaker 1: to morrow. I joined to morrow. It was twenty two
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  Speaker 1: years ago and I was just twenty. How time passes.
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  Speaker 1: It was one of the happiest days of my life.
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  Speaker 1: Fancy second mate for the first time, a really responsible officer.
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  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have thrown up my new billet for a fortune.
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  Speaker 1: The mate looked me over carefully. He was also an
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  Speaker 1: old chap, but of another stamp. He had a Roman nose,
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  Speaker 1: a snow white long beard, and his name was Mahon,
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  Speaker 1: but he insisted that it should be pronounced man. He
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  Speaker 1: was well connected, that there was something wrong with his luck,
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  Speaker 1: and he never got on As to the captain. He'd
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  Speaker 1: been for years in coasters, then in the Mediterranean, and
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  Speaker 1: last in the West Indian trade. He'd never been round
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  Speaker 1: the capes. He could just write a kind of sketchy hand,
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  Speaker 1: and didn't care for writing at all. Both were thorough
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  Speaker 1: good seamen, of course, and between those two old chaps,
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  Speaker 1: I felt like a small boy between two grandfathers. The
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  Speaker 1: ship all so was old. Her name was the JUDEA
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  Speaker 1: queer name, isn't it. She belonged to a man Wilma
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  Speaker 1: Wilcox some name like that, but he's been bankrupt and
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  Speaker 1: dead these twenty years or more. In his name doesn't matter.
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  Speaker 1: She'd been laid up in shadwell basin for ever so long.
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  Speaker 1: You may imagine her state. She was all rust dust, grime,
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  Speaker 1: sut aloft stood on deck. To me, it was like
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  Speaker 1: coming out of a palace into a ruined cottage. She
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  Speaker 1: was about four hundred tons, had a primitive windlass, wooden
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  Speaker 1: latches to the doors, not a bit of brass about her,
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  Speaker 1: and a big square stern. There was on it below
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  Speaker 1: her name in big letters, a lot of scroll work
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  Speaker 1: with a guilt off, and some kind of a coat
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  Speaker 1: of arms with a motto do or die underneath. I
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  Speaker 1: remember it took my fancy immensely. There was a touch
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  Speaker 1: of romance in it, something that made me love the
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  Speaker 1: old thing, something that appealed to my youth. We left
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  Speaker 1: London in ballast sand ballast to load a cargo of
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  Speaker 1: coal in a northern port for Bangkock. Bang Kock, I thrilled.
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  Speaker 1: I'd been six years at sea, but had only seen
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  Speaker 1: Melbourne and Sydney, very good places, charming places in their way,
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  Speaker 1: but Bangkock. We worked out of the Thames under canvas
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  Speaker 1: with a north Sea pilot on board. His name was German,
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  Speaker 1: and he dodged all day long about the galley, drying
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  Speaker 1: his handkerchief before the stove. Apparently he never slept. He
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  Speaker 1: was a dismal man with a perpetual tear sparkling at
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  Speaker 1: the end of his nose, who either had been in trouble,
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  Speaker 1: or was in trouble or expected to be in trouble,
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  Speaker 1: couldn't be happy unless something went wrong. He mistrusted my youth,
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  Speaker 1: my common sense, and my seamanship, and made a point
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  Speaker 1: of showing it in a hundred little ways. I dare
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  Speaker 1: say he was right. It seems to me I knew
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  Speaker 1: very little then, and I know not much more now,
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  Speaker 1: But I cherish a hate for that German to this day.
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  Speaker 1: We were a week working up as far as Yarmouth Roads,
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  Speaker 1: and then we got into a gale, the famous October
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  Speaker 1: Gale of twenty two years ago. It was wind, lightning, sleet, snow,
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  Speaker 1: and a terrific sea. We were flying light and you
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  Speaker 1: may imagine how bad it was when I tell you
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  Speaker 1: we'd smashed bulwarks in a flooded deck. On the second night,
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  Speaker 1: she shifted a ballast into the lee bow, and by
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  Speaker 1: that time we'd been blown off somewhere on the dogger bank.
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  Speaker 1: There was nothing for it but to go below with
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  Speaker 1: shovels and try to write her. And there we were
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  Speaker 1: in that vast hold, gloomy like a cavern, the tallow dips,
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  Speaker 1: stuck and flickering on the beams, the gale howling above,
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  Speaker 1: the ship tossing about like mad on her side. There
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  Speaker 1: we all were, German, the captain, everyone, hardly able to
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  Speaker 1: get our feet, engaged in that grave digger's work, and
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  Speaker 1: trying to toss shovelfuls of wet sand up to windward.
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  Speaker 1: At every tumble of the ship you could see vaguely
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  Speaker 1: in the dim light, men falling down with a great
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  Speaker 1: flourish of shovels. One of the ship's boys we had two,
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  Speaker 1: impressed by the weirdness of the scene, wept as if
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  Speaker 1: his heart would break. We could hear him blubbering somewhere
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  Speaker 1: in the shadows. On the third day, the gale died out,
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  Speaker 1: and by and by a north country tug picked us up.
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  Speaker 1: We took sixteen days in all to get from London
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  Speaker 1: to the Tyne. When we got into dock, we'd lost
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  Speaker 1: our turn for loading, and they hauled us off to
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  Speaker 1: a tear where we remained for a month. Missus Beard,
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  Speaker 1: the captain's name was Beard, came from Colchester to see
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  Speaker 1: the old man she lived on board. The crew of
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  Speaker 1: runners had left and there remained only the officers, one boy,
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  Speaker 1: and the steward, a mulatto who answered to the name
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  Speaker 1: of Abraham. Missus Beard was an old woman with a
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  Speaker 1: face all wrinkled and ruddy like a winter apple, and
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  Speaker 1: the figure of a young girl. She caught sight of
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  Speaker 1: me once sewing on a button and insisted on having
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  Speaker 1: my shirts to repair. This was something different from the
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  Speaker 1: captain's wives I had known on board crack clippers. When
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  Speaker 1: I brought her the shirt, she said, and the socks
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  Speaker 1: they want mending. I'm sure, and John's Captain Beard's things
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  Speaker 1: are all in order now. I would be glad of
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  Speaker 1: something to do. Bless the old woman. She overhauled my
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  Speaker 1: outfit for me, and meantime I read for the first
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  Speaker 1: time Sartor Rosatis and Burnaby's Ride to Kiva. I didn't
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  Speaker 1: understand much of the first then, but I remember I
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  Speaker 1: preferred the soldier to the philosopher at the time, a
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  Speaker 1: preference which life has only confirmed. One was a man
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  Speaker 1: and the other was either more or less. However, they're
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  Speaker 1: both dead, and Missus Beard is dead. And youth, strength,
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  Speaker 1: genius thoughts, achievements, simple hearts, old eyes. No matter. They
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  Speaker 1: loaded us at last. We shipped a crew, eight able
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  Speaker 1: seamen and two boys. We hauled off one evening to
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  Speaker 1: the boys at the dock gates, ready to go out,
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  Speaker 1: and with a fair prospect of beginning the voyage next day.
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  Speaker 1: Missus Beard was to start for home by a late train.
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  Speaker 1: When the ship was fast, we went to tea. We
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  Speaker 1: sat rather silent through the meal man the old couple
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  Speaker 1: than I. I finished first and slipped away for a smoke.
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  Speaker 1: My cabin being in a deck house just against the poop.
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  Speaker 1: It was high water blowing fresh with the drizzle. The
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  Speaker 1: double dock gates were opened and the steam colliers were
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  Speaker 1: going in and out in the darkness, with their lights
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  Speaker 1: burning bright, a great plashing of propellers, rattling of winches,
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  Speaker 1: and a lot of hailing on the pier heads. I
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  Speaker 1: watched the procession of head lights gliding high and of
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  Speaker 1: green lights gliding low in the night, when suddenly a
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  Speaker 1: red gleam flashed at me, vanished, came into view again,
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  Speaker 1: and remained The fore end of a steamer loomed up close.
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  Speaker 1: I shouted down the cabin, come up quick, and then
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  Speaker 1: heard a startled voice saying, afar in the dark, stop us, sir.
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  Speaker 1: A bell jingled. Another voice cried, warningly, we're going right
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  Speaker 1: into that barge, sir. The answer to this was a
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  Speaker 1: gruff all right. And the next thing was a heavy
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  Speaker 1: crash as the steamer struck a glancing blow with the
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  Speaker 1: bluff of her bow against our fall rigging. There was
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  Speaker 1: a moment of confusion, yelling and running about. Steam roared.
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  Speaker 1: Then somebody was heard saying all clear, sir. Are you
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  Speaker 1: all right? Asked the gruff voice. I jumped forward to
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  Speaker 1: see the damage and hailed back. I think so easier, stern,
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: said the gruff voice. A bell jingled, What steamer's that?
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  Speaker 1: Screamed man. By that time she was no more to
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  Speaker 1: us than a bulky shadow maneuvering a little way off.
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  Speaker 1: They shouted at a some name, a woman's name, Miranda
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  Speaker 1: or Melissa or some such thing. This means another month
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  Speaker 1: in this beastly hole, said man to me, as we
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  Speaker 1: peered with lamps about the splintered bullocks and broken braces.
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  Speaker 1: But where's the captain? We had not heard or seen
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  Speaker 1: anything of him all that time. We went aft to look.
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  Speaker 1: A doleful voice arose, hailing somewhere in the middle of
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  Speaker 1: the dock to dear, ahoy, how the devil did he
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  Speaker 1: get there? Hallo, we shouted, I'm adrift in our boat
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  Speaker 1: without oars, he cried. A belated waterman offered his services,
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  Speaker 1: and Man struck a bargain with him for half a
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  Speaker 1: crown to tow our skipper alongside. But it was missus
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  Speaker 1: Beard that came up the ladder first. They'd been floating
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  Speaker 1: about the dock in that misly cold rain for nearly
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  Speaker 1: an hour. I was never so surprised in my life.
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  Speaker 1: It appears that when he heard my shout come up,
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  Speaker 1: he understood at once what was the matter, caught up
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  Speaker 1: his wife, ran on deck, across and down into our boat,
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  Speaker 1: which was fast to the ladder. Not bad for a
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  Speaker 1: sixty year old. Just imagine that old fellow saving heroically
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  Speaker 1: in his arms that old woman, the woman of his life.
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  Speaker 1: He set her down on a thwart and was ready
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  Speaker 1: to climb back on board when the painter came adrift somehow,
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  Speaker 1: and away they went. Together. Of course, in the confusion,
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  Speaker 1: we did not hear him shouting. He looked abashed, she
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  Speaker 1: said cheerfully. I suppose it does not matter my losing
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  Speaker 1: the train. Now, no, Jenny, you go below and get warm,
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  Speaker 1: he growled. Then to us, a sailor has no business
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  Speaker 1: with a wife. I say, there I was out of
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  Speaker 1: the ship. Well, no harm done this time. Let's go
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  Speaker 1: and see what that fool of a steamer smashed. It
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  Speaker 1: wasn't much, but it delayed us three weeks. At the
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  Speaker 1: end of that time, the captain being engaged with his agents,
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  Speaker 1: I carried missus Beard's bag to the railway station and
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  Speaker 1: put her all comfy into a third class carriage. She
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  Speaker 1: lowered the window to say, you're a good young man.
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  Speaker 1: If you see John Captain Beard without his muffler at night,
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  Speaker 1: just remind him from me to keep his throat well
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  Speaker 1: wrapped up, certainly, missus Beard, I said, you are a
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  Speaker 1: good young man. I noticed how attentive you are to
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  Speaker 1: John to captain. The train pulled out suddenly. I took
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  Speaker 1: my cap off to the old woman. I never saw
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  Speaker 1: her again, passed the bottle we went to see next day.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: When we made that start for Bangkok, we've been already
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  Speaker 1: three months out of London. We'd expected to be a
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  Speaker 1: fortnight or so. At the outside. It was January and
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  Speaker 1: the weather was beautiful, the beautiful sunny winter weather that
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  Speaker 1: has more charm than in the summer time because it
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  Speaker 1: is unexpected and crisp, and you know it won't It
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  Speaker 1: can't last long. It's like a windfall, like a godsend,
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  Speaker 1: like an unexpected piece of luck. It lasted all down
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  Speaker 1: the North Sea, all down Channel, and it lasted till
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  Speaker 1: we were three hundred miles or so to the westward
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  Speaker 1: off the Lizards. Then the wind went round to the
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  Speaker 1: southwest and began to pipe up. In two days, it
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  Speaker 1: blew a gale. The Judea Hove, too, wallowed on the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: Atlantic like an old candle box. It blew day after day.
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  Speaker 1: It blew with spite, without interval, without mercy. Without rest,
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  Speaker 1: the world was nothing but an immensity of great foaming waves,
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  Speaker 1: rushing at us under a sky low enough to touch
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  Speaker 1: with the hand, and dirty like a smoked ceiling. In
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  Speaker 1: the stormy space surrounding us, there was as much flying
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  Speaker 1: spray as air. Day after day and night after night.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: There was nothing round the ship but the howl of
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  Speaker 1: the wind, the tumult of the sea, the noise of
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  Speaker 1: water pouring over her deck. There was no rest for her,
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  Speaker 1: and no rest for us. She tossed, she pitched, She
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  Speaker 1: stood on her head, she sat on her tail, she rolled,
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  Speaker 1: she groaned, And we had to hold on while on
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  Speaker 1: deck and cling to our bunks when below, in a
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: constant effort of body and worry of mind. One night
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  Speaker 1: man spoke to the small window of my berth. It
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  Speaker 1: opened right into my very bed, and I was lying there,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: sleepless in my boots, feeling as though I'd not slept
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  Speaker 1: for years, and could not if I tried. He said, excitedly,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you got the sounding rod in here, Marlow, I can't
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: get the pumps to suck. By god, it's no child's play.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I gave him the sounding rod and lay down again,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: trying to think of various things, but I thought only
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: of the pumps. When I came on deck, they were
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  Speaker 1: still at it. And my watch relieved at the pumps.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: By the light of the lantern brought on deck to
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  Speaker 1: examine the sounding rod, I caught a glimpse of their weary,
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  Speaker 1: serious faces. We pumped all the four hours. We pumped
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: all night, all day, all the week, watch and watch.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: She was working herself loose and leaked badly, not enough
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: to drown us at once, but enough to kill us
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: with the work of the pumps. While we pumped, the
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: ship was going from us piecemeal. The bullocks went, the
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  Speaker 1: stanchions were torn out, the ventilators smashed, the cabin door
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: burst in. There was not a dry spot in the ship.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: She was being gutted bit by bit. The longboat changed,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: as if by magic, into matchwood. Where she stood in
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  Speaker 1: her gripe. I had lashed her myself, and was rather
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  Speaker 1: proud of my handiwork, which had withstood so long the
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  Speaker 1: malice of the sea. And we pumped, and there was
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  Speaker 1: no break in the weather. The sea was white like
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  Speaker 1: a sheet of foam, like a cauldron of boiling milk.
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  Speaker 1: There was not a break in the clouds. No, not
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  Speaker 1: the size of a man's hand. No, not for so
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  Speaker 1: much as ten seconds, there was for us no sky.
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  Speaker 1: There were for us no stars, no sun, no universe,
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  Speaker 1: nothing but angry crowds and an infuriated sea. We pumped
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  Speaker 1: watch and watch for dear life, and it seemed to
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  Speaker 1: last for months, for years, for all eternity, as though
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: we'd been dead and gone to a hell for sailors.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: We forgot the day of the week, the name of
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: the month, what year it was, and weather we'd ever
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: been ashore. The sails blew away. We lay broadside on
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  Speaker 1: under a weather cloth. The ocean poured over her, and
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  Speaker 1: we did not care. We turned those handles and had
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  Speaker 1: the eyes of idiots. As soon as we crawled on deck,
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  Speaker 1: I used to take a round turn with a rope
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  Speaker 1: about the men pumps and the main must and we turned.
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  Speaker 1: We turned incessantly, with the water to our waists, to
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  Speaker 1: our necks, over our heads. It was all one. We'd
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  Speaker 1: forgotten how it felt to be dry, And there was
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: somewhere in me the thought, by jove, this is the
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  Speaker 1: deuce of an adventure, something you read about, and is
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  Speaker 1: my first voyage. A second mate and I am only twenty,
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and here I am lasting it out as well as
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: any of these men, and keeping my chaps up to
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: the mark. I was pleased. I would not have given
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: up the experience for worlds. I had moments of exultation.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Whenever the old dismantled craft pitched heavily on her counter,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: high in the air. She seemed to me to throw
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: up like an appeal, like a defiance, like a cry
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: to the clouds without mercy. The words written on her
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: stern Judea London, do or die, Oh youth. The strength
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: To me, she was not an old rattle trap carting
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: around the world a lot of coal for a freight.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: To me, she was the endeavor, the test, the trial
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: of life. I think of her with pleasure, with affection,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: with regret, as you would think of someone dead you've loved.
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I shall never forget her. Passed the bottle. One night,
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: when tied to the mast, as I explained, we were
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: pumping on, deafened with the wind, and without spirit enough
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: in us to wish ourselves dead. A heavy sea crashed
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: aboard and swept clean over us. As soon as I
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: got my breath, I shouted, as in duty bound. Keep on, boys,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: When suddenly I felt something hard floating on deck strike
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: the calf of my leg. I made a grab at
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: it and missed. It was so dark we could not
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: see each other's faces within a foot, you understand. After
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: that thump, the ship kept quiet for a while, and
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the thing, whatever it was, struck my leg again. This
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: time I caught it, and it was a saucepan. At first,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: being stupid with fatigue and thinking of nothing but the pumps,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I did not understand what I had in my hand.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: Suddenly it dawned upon me, and I shouted, boys, the
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: house on deck is gone. Leave this and let's look
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: for the cook. There was a deck house forward, which
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: contained the galley, the cook's berth, and the quarters of
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: the crew. As we had expected for days to see
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: it swept away. The hands had been ordered to sleep
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: in the cabins, the only safe place in the ship.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: The steward Abraham, however, persisted in clinging to his berth,
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: stupidly like a mule from sheer fright. I believe, like
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: an animal that won't leave a stable falling in an earthquake.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: So we went to look for him. It was chancing death,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: since once out of our lashings, we were as exposed
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: as if on a raft. But we went. The house
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: was shattered, as if a shell had exploded inside it.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Most of it had gone overboard, stove men's quarters and
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: their property all was gone, but two posts holding a
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: portion of the bulkhead to which Abraham's bunk was attached, remained,
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: as if by a miracle. We groped in the ruins
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and came upon this, And there he was, sitting in
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: his bunk, surrounded by foam and wreckage, jabbering cheerfully to himself.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: He was out of his mind completely and forever mad
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: with that sudden shock coming upon the fag end of
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: his endurance. We snatched him up, lugged him aft, and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: pitched him head first down the cabin. Companion, you understand,
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: there was no time to carry him down with infinite
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: precautions and wait to see how he got on. Those
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: below would pick him up at the bottom of the stairs.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: All right, We were in a hurry to get back
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: to the pumps. That business could wait. A bad leak
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: is an inhuman thing. One would think that the sole
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: purpose of that fiendish gale had been to make a
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: lunatic of that poor devil of a mulatto. It eased
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: before morning. The next day, the sky cleared, and as
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the sea went down, the leak took up. When it
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: came to bending a fresh set of sails, the crew
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: demanded to put back, and really there was nothing else
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: to do. Boats gone, decks swept clean, cabin gutted, men
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: without a stitch for what they stood in stores, spoiled,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: ships strained. We put her head for home, and would
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: you believe it, the wind came east right in our teeth.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: It blew fresh, it blew continuously. We had to beat
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: up every inch of the way, but she did not
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: leak so badly. The water keeping comparatively smooth. Two hours
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: pumping in every four was no joke, but it kept
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: her afloat as far as Falmouth. The good people there
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: live on casualties of the sea, and no doubt were
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: glad to see us. A hungry crowd of shipwrights sharpened
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: their chisels at the sight of that carcass of a ship,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and by jove, there were pretty pickings off us before
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: they were done. I fancy the owner was already in
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: a tight place there were delays. Then it was decided
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to take part of the cargo out and cork her
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: top sides. That was done, the repairs finished, cargo reshipped,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: A new crew came on board, and we went out
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: for Bangkok. At the end of the week we were
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: back again. The crew said they weren't going to Bangkok.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: One hundred and fifty days passage in a something hooker
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: that wanted pumping eight hours out of the twenty four,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: and the nautical papers incerted it again. The little paragraph
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Judea bark tying to Bangkok coals put back to Falmouth leaky,
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: and with crew refusing duty, there were more delays, more tinkering.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: The owner came down for a day and said she
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: was as right as a little fiddle or old Captain
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Beard looked like the ghost of a Jaudi skipper through
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the worrying humiliation of it. Remember he was sixty and
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: it was his first command. Mann said it was a
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: foolish business and would end badly. I loved the ship
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: more than ever and wanted awfully to get to Bangkok.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: To Bangkok, magic name, blessed name, Mesopotamia wasn't a patch
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: on it. Remember I was twenty, and it was my
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: first second mate's billet, and the east was waiting for me.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: We went out and anchored in the outer roads with
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: a fresh crew. The third she leaked worse than ever.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: It was as if those confounded shipwrights had actually made
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: a hole in her. This time. We did not even
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: go outside. The crew simply refused to man the windlass.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: End of part one. This is a LibriVox recording. All
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot o RG. This
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: reading by Chris Hughes readear dot blogspot dot com. Youth
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and narrative by Joseph Conrad. Part two. They towed us
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: back to the Inner Harbor, and we became a fixture,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: a feature, an institution of the place. People pointed us
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: out to visitors as valier bar that's going to Bangkok,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: has been here six months, put back three times on holidays.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: The small boys pulling about in boatswood hail judea ahoy,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: and if a head showed above the rail shouted, way
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: you are bound to Bangkok, jeered. We were only three
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: on board. The poor old skipper mooned in the cabin
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: man undertook the cooking and unexpectedly developed all the Frenchman's
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: genius for preparing nice little messes. I looked languidly. After
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: the rigging, we became citizens of Falmouth. Every shopkeeper knew us.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: At the barbers or tobacconists, they asked, familiarly, do you
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: think you'll ever get to Bangkok? Meanwhile, the owner, the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: underwriters and the charterers squbbled amongst themselves in London, and
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: our pay went on passed the bottle. It was horrid morally,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: it was worse than pumping for life. It seemed as
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: though we'd been forgotten by the world, belonged to Nobody
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: would get nowhere. It seemed that, as if bewitched, we
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: would have to live forever and ever in that inner harbor,
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: A derision and a by word to generations of longshore
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: loafers and dishonest boatmen. I obtained three months pay and
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: a five days his leave and made a rush for London.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: It took me a day to get there, and pretty
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: well another to come back, but three months pay went
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: all the same. I don't know what I did with it.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: I went to a music hall, I believe lunched, dined,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and supped in a swell place in Regent Street, and
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: was back in time with nothing but a complete set
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: of Byron's works and a new railway rug to show
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: for three months work. The boatman who pulled me off
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: to the ship said, hello, I thought you'd left the
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: old thing. She'll never get her bangkock. That's all you
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: know about it, I said, scornfully, but I didn't like
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: that prophecy at all. Suddenly a man, some kind of
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: agent to somebody, appeared with full powers. He had grog
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: blossoms all over his face, an indomitable energy, and was
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: a jolly soul. We leaped into life again. A hulk
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: came alongside, took our cargo, and then we went into
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: dry dock to get our copper stripped. No wonder she leaked.
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: The poor thing, strained beyond endurance by the gale, had,
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: as if discussed, spat out all the oakum of her
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: lower seams. She was recorked, now coppered, and made as
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: tight as a bottle. We went back to the hulk
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: and reshipped our cargo. Then, on a fine moonlight night,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: all the rats left the ship. We had been infested
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: with them. They had destroyed our sails, consumed more stores
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: than the crew, affably shared our beds and our dangers.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: And now, when the ship was made seaworthy, concluded to
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: clear out, I called man to enjoy the spectacle. Rat
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: after rat appeared on our rail, took a last look
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: over his shoulder, and leaped with a hollow thud into
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the empty hulk. We tried to count them, but soon lost.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: The tail man said, well, well, don't talk to me
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: about the intelligence of rats. They ought to have left
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: before when we had that narrow squeak from foundering. There
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: you have the proof of how silly is the superstition
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: about them. They leave a good ship for an old,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: rotten hulk where there's nothing to eat too the fools.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: I don't believe they know what's safe or it is
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: good for them any more than you or I. And
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: after some more talk we agreed that the wisdom of
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: rats had been grossly overrated, being in fact no greater
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: than that of men. The story of the ship was
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: known by this all up the channel from Land's End
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: to the Fallands, and we could get no crew on
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the south coast. They sent us one all complete from Liverpool,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: and we left once more the Bancock. We had fair breezes,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: smooth water right into the tropics, and the old Judea
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: lumbered along in the sunshine. When she went eight knots,
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: everything cracked aloft, and we tied our caps to our heads.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: But mostly she strolled on at the rate of three
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: miles an hour. What could you expect? She was tired
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: that old ship. Her youth was where mine is, where
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: yours is, You fellows who listened to this yarn, And
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: what friend would throw your years and your weariness in
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: your face? We didn't grumble at her to us after
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: at least it seemed as though we had been born
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: in her, reared in her, had lived in of her age,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: had never known any other ship. I would just have
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: soon have abused the old village church at home for
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: not being a cathedral. And for me there was also
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: my youth to make me patient. There was all the
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: east before me, and all life, and the thought that
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I'd been tried in that ship and had come out
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: pretty well. And I thought of men of old who
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: centuries ago went that road in ships that sailed no
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: better to the land of palms and spices and yellow sands.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: And of brown nations ruled by kings more cruel than
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Nero the Roman, and more splendid than Solomon the Jew.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: The old Bark lumbered on, heavy with her age and
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: the burden of her cargo, while I lived the life
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: of youth in ignorance and hope. She lumbered on through
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: an interminable procession of days, and the fresh gilding flashed
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: back at the setting sun seemed to cry out over
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the darkening sea, the words painted on her stern Judea London,
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: do or Die. Then we entered the Indian Ocean and
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: steer northerly for Java Head. The winds were light, weeks
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: slipped by, she crawled on, do or die, and people
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: at home began to think of posting us as overdue.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: One Saturday evening, I being off duty, the men asked
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: me to give them an extra bucket of water or
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: so for washing clothes, as I did not wish to
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: screw on the fresh water pump so late. I went forward,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: whistling and with a key in my hand to unlock
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: the four peak scuttle, intending to serve the water out
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: of a spare tank we kept there. The smell down
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: below was as unexpected as it was frightful. One would
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: have thought thousands of paraffin lamps had been flaring and
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: smoking in that hole for days. I was glad to
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: get out. The man with me coughed and said, funny smell, sir.
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I answered negligently, it's good for the health, they say,
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: and walked aft. The first thing I did was to
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: put my head down the square of the midship ventilator.
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: As I lifted the lid, a visible breath, something like
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: a thin fog. A puff of faint haze rose from
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: the opening. The ascending air was hot and had a heavy, sooty,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: paraffiny smell. I gave one sniff and put down the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: lid gently. It was no use choking myself. The cargo
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: was on fire. Next day she began to smoke in earnest.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: You see, it was to be expected, for though the
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: coal was of a safe kind, that cargo had been
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: so handled, so broken up with handling, that it looked
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: more like smithy coal than anything else. Then it had
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: been wetted more than once. It rained all the time
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: we were taking it back from the hulk, and now
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: with this long passage it got heated and there was
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: another case of spontaneous combustion. The captain called us into
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the cabin. He had a chart spread on the table
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: and looked unhappy. He said, the coast of West Australia
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: is near, but I mean to proceed to our destination.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: It is the hurricane month too, but we will just
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: keep her head for Bangkok and fight the fire. No
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: more putting back anywhere. If we all get roasted, we
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: will try first to stifle this here damn combustion by
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: want of air. We tried. We battened down everything, and
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: still she smoked. The smoke kept coming out through imperceptible crevices.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: It forced itself through bulkheads and covers. It oozed here
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: and there and everywhere in slender threads, in an invisible film,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: in an incomprehensible manner. It made its way into the cabin,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: into the forecastle. It poisoned the sheltered places on the deck.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: It could be sniffed as high as the main yard.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: It was clear that if the smoke came out, the
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: air came in. This was disheartening. This combustion refused to
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: be stifled. We resolved to try water and took the
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: hatches off enormous volumes of smoke, whitish, yellowish, thick, greasy,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: misty choking ascended as high as the trucks. All hands
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: cleared out aft. Then the poisonous cloud blew away, and
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: we went back to work in a smoke that was
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: no thicker now than that of an ordinary factory chimney.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: We rigged the force pump, got the hose along, and
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: by and by it burst well. It was as old
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: as the ship, a prehistoric hose and past repair. Then
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: we pumped with the feeble head pump, drew water with buckets,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: and in this way managed in time to pour lots
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: of Indian ocean into the main hatch. The bright stream
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: flashed in sunshine, fell into a layer of white, crawling smoke,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and vanished on the black surface of coal. Steam ascended,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: mingling with the smoke. We poured salt water as into
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: a barrel without a bottom. It was our fate to
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: pump in that ship, to pump out of her, to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: pump into her, And after keeping water out of her,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to save ourselves from being drowned, we frantically poured water
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: into her to save ourselves from being burnt. And she
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: crawled on do or die in the serene weather. The
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: sky was a miracle of purity, a miracle of azure.
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: The sea was polished, was blue, was pellucid, was sparkling
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: like a precious stone, ex extending on all sides, all
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: around to the horizon, as if the whole terrestrial globe
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: had been one jewel, one colossal sapphire, a single gem
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: fashioned into a planet. And on the luster of the
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: great calm waters, the Judea glided imperceptibly, enveloped in languid
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: and unclean vapors, in a lazy cloud that drifted to leeward,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: light and slow, a pestiferous cloud, defiling the splendor of
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: sea and sky. All this time, of course, we saw
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: no fire. The cargo smoldered at the bottom somewhere. Once man,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: as we were working side by side, said to me,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: with a queer smile, Now, if she only would spring
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: a tidy leak like that time when we first left
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: the channel, it would put a stopper on this fire,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: wouldn't it, i remarked irreverently, Do you remember the rats?
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: We fought the fire and sailed the ship too, as carefully,
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: as though nothing had been the matter. The steward cook
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: and attended on us. Of the other twelve men, eight
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: worked while four rested. Everyone took his turn. Captain included
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: there was equality, and if not exactly fraternity, then a
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: deal of good feeling. Sometimes a man, as he dashed
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: a bucket full of water down the hatchway, would yell
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: out Hurrah for Bangkok, and the rest laughed. But generally
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: we were taciturn and serious and thirsty, oh how thirsty.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: And we had to be careful with the water strict allowance.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: The ship smoked, the sun blazed past the bottle. We
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: tried everything. We even made an attempt to dig down
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: to the fire. No good, of course, no man could
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: remain more than a minute below. Man who went first
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: fainted there, and the man who went to fetch him
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: out did Likewise. We lugged them out on deck. Then
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: I leaped down to show how easily it could be done.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: They had learned wisdom by that time, and contented themselves
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: by fishing for me with a chain hook tied to
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: a broom handle. I believe I did not offer to
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: go and fetch my shovel, which was left down below.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Things began to look bad. We put the long boat
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: into the water. The second boat was ready to swing out.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: We had also another, a fourteen foot thing on Davitz aft,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: where it was quite safe. Then behold, the smoke suddenly decreased.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: We redoubled our efforts to flood the bottom of the ship.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: In two days there was no smoke at all. Everybody
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: was on the broad grin. This was on a Friday.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: On Saturday, no work but sailing the ship, of course,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: was done. The men washed their clothes and their faces
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: for the first time in a fortnight, and had a
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: special dinner given them. They spoke of spontaneous combustion with contempt,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: and implied they were the boys to put out combustions. Somehow,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: we all felt as though we each had inherited a
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: large fortune. But a beastly smell of burning hung about
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: the ship. Captain Beard had hollow eyes and sunken cheeks.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: I had never noticed so much before, how twisted and
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: bowed he was. He and man prowled soberly about hatches
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: and ventilators, sniffing. It struck me suddenly, poor man was
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: a very very old chap As to me, I was
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: as pleased and proud as though I had helped to
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: win a great naval battle, oh Youth. The night was fine.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: In the morning a homeward bound ship passed us hull
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: down the first wee teen for months, but we were
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: nearing the land at last, Javahead, being about one hundred
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: and ninety miles off and nearly due north. Next day
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: it was my watch on deck from eight to twelve.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: At breakfast, the captain observed, it's wonderful how that smell
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: hangs about the cabin. About ten, the mate being on
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: the poop, I stepped down on the main deck for
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: a moment. The carpenter's bench stood abaft the mainmast. I
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: leaned against it, sucking at my pipe, and the carpenter,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: a young chap, came to talk to me. He remarked,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: I think we've done very well, haven't we? And then
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: I perceived with annoyance the fool was trying to till
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: the bench. I said, curtly, don't chips, and immediately became
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: aware of a queer sensation of an absurd delusion. I seemed,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: somehow to be in the air. I heard all round
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: me like a pent up breath released, as if a
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: thousand giants simultaneously had said phoo, and felt a dull
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: concussion which made my ribs ache suddenly, no doubt about it.
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: I was in the air and my body was describing
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: a short parabola. But short as it was, I had
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: the time to think several thoughts in it, as far
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: as I could remember, the following order. This can't be
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the carpenter. What is it? Some accident, submarine volcano, coals gas.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: By jove, we're being blown up. Everybody's dead. I'm falling
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: into the after hatch. I see fire in it. The
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: coal dust suspended in the air of the hold had
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: glowed dull red at the moment of the explosion, in
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: the twinkling of an eye. In an infinitesimal fraction of
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: a second since the first tilt of the bench, I
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: was sprawling full length on the cargo. I picked myself
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: up and scrambled out. It was quick, like a rebound.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: The deck was a wilderness of smashed timber, lying crosswise
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: like trees in a wood after a hurricane. An immense
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: curtain of soiled rags waved gently before me. It was
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: the mainsail blown to strips. I thought the masts would
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: be toppling over directly and to get out of the way,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: bolted on all fours towards the poop ladder. The first
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: person I saw was man with eyes like saucers, his
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: mouth open, and the long white hair standing straight on
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: end round his head like a silver halo. He was
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: just about to go down when the sight of the
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: main deck stirring, heaving up and changing into splinters before
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: his eyes petrified him. On the top step. I stared
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: at him in unbelief, and he stared at me with
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: a queer kind of shocked curiosity. I did not know
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: that I had no hair, no eyebrows, no eyelashes, that
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: my young mustoche was burnt off, that my face was black,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: one cheek laid open, my nose cut, and my chin bleeding.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: I had lost my cap, one of my slippers, and
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: my shirt was torn to rags. Of all this I
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: was not aware. I was amazed to see the ship
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: still afloat the poop deck hole, and most of all,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: to see anybody alive. Also, the peace of the sky
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: and the serenity of the sea were distinctly surprising. I
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: suppose I expected to see them. Convulsed with horror, passed
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: the bottle. There was a voice hailing the ship from
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: somewhere in the air, in the sky, I couldn't tell presently.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I saw the captain, and he was mad. He asked
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: me eagerly, where's the cabin table? And to hear such
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: a question was a frightful shock. I had just been
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: blown up, you understand, and vibrated with that experience. I
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: wasn't quite sure whether I was alive. Man began to
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: stamp with both feet and yelled at him, good God,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: don't you see the decks blown out of her? I
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: found my voice and stammered out, as if con of
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: some gross neglect of duty. I don't know where the
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: cabin table is. It was like an absurd dream. Do
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: you know what he wanted next? Well? He wanted to
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: trim the yards, very placidly, and as if lost in thought,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: he insisted on having the four yard squared. I don't
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: know if there's anybody alive, said Man, almost tearfully. Surely,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: he said, gently, there'll be enough left to square the
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: four yard. The old man, it seems, was in his
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: own berth, winding up the chronometers when the shock sent
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: him spinning. Immediately it occurred to him, as he said afterwards,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: that the ship had struck something, and he ran out
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: into the cabin. There he saw the cabin table had
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: vanished somewhere, the deck being blown up. It had fallen
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: down into the lazarette, of course, where we had our
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: breakfast that morning. He saw only a great hole in
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: the floor. This appeared to him so awfully mysterious, and
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: impressed him so immensely that what he saw and heard
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: after he got on deck were mere trifles in comparison
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: and mark. He noticed directly the wheel deserted and his
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: bark off her course, and his only thought was to
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: get that miserable, stripped, undecked, smoldering shell of a ship
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: back again, with her head pointing at her port of destination. Bancock,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: that's what he was after, I tell you, this quiet, bowed,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: bandy legged, almost deformed little man was immense in the
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: singleness of his idea and his placid ignorance of our agitation.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: He motioned us forward with a commanding gesture, and went
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: to take the wheel himself. Yes, that was the first
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: thing he did. Trim the yards of that wreck. No
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: one was killed or even disabled, but everyone was more
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: or less hurt. You should have seen them. Some were
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: in rags with black faces like coal heavers like sweeps,
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: and had bullet heads that seemed closely cropped, but were
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: in fact singed to the skin. Others of the watch below,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: wakened by being shot out of their collapsing bunks, shivered
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: incessantly and kept on groaning even as we went about
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: our work. But they all worked. That crew of Liverpool
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: hard cases had in them the right stuff. It's my
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: experience they always have. It is the sea that gives it,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: the vastness, the loneliness surrounding their dark, stolid souls. Ah Well,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: we stumbled, we crept, we fell, We barked our shins
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: on the wreckage. We hauled. The masts stood, but we
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: did not know how much they might be charred. Down below.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: It was nearly calm, but a long swell ran from
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: the west and made her roll. They might go at
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: any moment. We looked at them with apprehension. One could
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: not foresee which way they would fall. Then we retreated
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: aft and looked about us. The deck was a tangle
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: of planks on edge of planks on end of splinters
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: of ruined woodwork. The masts rose from that chaos like
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: big trees above a matted undergrowth. The stices of that
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: mass of wreckage were full of something whitish, sluggish, stirring
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: of something that was like a greasy fog. The smoke
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: of the invisible fire was coming up again, was trailing
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: like a poisonous thick mist in some valley choked with
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: dead wood. Already lazy wisps were beginning to curl upwards
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: amongst the mass of splinters. Here and there a piece
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: of timber struck upright resembled a post. Half of a
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: fife rail had been shot through the foresail, and the
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: sky made a patch of glorious blue in the ignobly
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: soiled canvas. A portion of several boards holding together had
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: fallen across the rail, and one end protruded overboard, like
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: a gangway leading upon nothing like a gangway leading over
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: the deep sea, leading to death, as if inviting us
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: to walk the plank at once and be done with
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: our ridiculous troubles. And still the air the sky, a ghost,
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: something invisible was hailing the ship. Someone had the sense
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: to look over, and there was the helmsman who'd impulsively
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: jumped overboard, lord anxious to come back he yelled and
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: swam lustily like a merman, keeping up with the ship.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: We threw him a rope, and presently he stood amongst us,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: streaming with water and very crestfallen. The captain had surrendered
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: the wheel, and apart, elbown rail and chin on hand,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: gazed at the sea wistfully. We asked ourselves what next.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: I thought, now this is something like this is great.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: I wonder what will happen, oh youth. Suddenly man sighted
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: a steamer far astern. Captain Beard said we may do
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: something with her. Yet we hoisted two flags which said,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: in the international language of the sea on fire, want
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: immediate assistance. The steamer grew bigger rapidly, and by and
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: by spoke with two flags on her foremast, I am
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: coming to your assistance. In half an hour she was
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: abreast to windward, within hail, and rolling slightly with her
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: engines stopped. We lost our composure and yelled all together
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: with excitement, we've been blown up. A man in a
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: white helmet on the bridge cried, yes, all right, all right,
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: and he nodded his head and smiled amid soothing motions
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: with his hand, as though at a lot of frightened children.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: One of the boats dropped in the water and walked
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: towards us upon the sea with her long oars four clashes,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: pulled a swinging stroke. This was my first sight of
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: Malay seamen. I've known them since, but what struck me
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: then was their unconcern. They came alongside, and even the bowman,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: standing up and holding to our main chains with the
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: boat hook, did not deign to lift his head for
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: a glance. I thought people who'd been blown up deserved
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: more attention. A little man, dry like a chip and
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: agile like a monkey, clambered up was the mate of
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: the steamer. He gave one look and cried, oh boys,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: you better quit. We were silent. He talked apart with
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: a captain for a time, seemed to argue with him.
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: Then they went away together to the steamer. When our
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: skipper came back, we learned that the steamer was the
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: Somerville Captain Nash from West Australia to Singapore via Batavia
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: with mails, and that the agreement was she would tow
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: us to Azure or Batavia if possible, where we could
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: extinguish the fire by scuttling, and then proceed on our
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: voyage to Bangkok. The old man seemed excited. We will
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: do it, yet, he said to man fiercely. He shook
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: his fist at the sky. Nobody else said a word.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: At noon, the steamer began to tow. She went ahead,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: slim and high, and what was left of the Judea
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: followed at the end of seventy fathom of tow. Rope
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: followed her swiftly, like a cloud of smoke, with mast
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: heads protruding above. We went aloft to furl the sails.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: We coughed on the yards and were careful about the bunts.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Do you see the lot of us there putting a
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: neat furl on the sails of that ship doomed to
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: arrive nowhere. There was not a man who didn't think
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: that at any moment the mast would topple over. From aloft,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: we could not see the ship for smoke, and they
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: worked carefully, passing the gaskets with even turns. Harbor furl aloft, there,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: called man from below. You understand this. I don't think
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: one of those chaps expected to get down in the
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: usual way. When we did. I heard them saying to
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: each other, well, I thought we would come down overboard
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: in a lump sticks, and all blame me if I didn't.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: That's what I was thinking myself, would answer wearily, another
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: battered and bandaged scarecrow. And mind, these were men without
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the drilled in habit of obedience to an onlooker, there
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: would be a lot of profane scallywags without a redeeming point.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: What made them do it? What made them obay me
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: when I thinking consciously how fine it was, made them
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: drop the bunt of the foresail twice to try and
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: do it better? What they had? No professional reputation, no examples,
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: no praise. It wasn't a sense of duty. They all
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: knew well enough how to shirk and laze and dodge
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: when they had a mind to it, and mostly they had.
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Was it the two pounds ten a month that sent
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: them there? They didn't think their pay half good enough? No,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: it was something in them, something inborn and subtle and
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: ever lasting. I don't say positively that the crew of
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: a French or German merchantman wouldn't have done it, but
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: I doubt whether it would have been done in the
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: same way. There was a completeness in it, something solid,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: like a principle and masterful, like an instinct, a disclosure
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: of something secret, of that hidden something, that gift of
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: good or evil, that makes racial difference, that shapes the
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: fate of nations. End of Part two. This is a
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: o RG. This reading by Chris Hughes readear dot blogspot
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: dot com. Youth a narrative by Joseph Conrad, Part three.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: It was that night at ten that for the first
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: time since we'd been fighting it, we saw the fire.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: The speed of the towing had fanned the smoldering destruction.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: A blue gleam appeared forward, shining below the wreck of
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: the deck. It wavered in patches. It seemed to stir
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: and creep, like the light of a glowworm. I saw
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: it first and told Man then the game's up. He said,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: we'd better stop this towing or she'll burst out suddenly.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: For and half before we can clear out, we set
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: up a yell rang bells to attract their attention. They
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: towed on. At last, Man and I had to crawl
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: forward and cut the rope with an axe. There was
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: no time to cast off the lashings. Red tongues could
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: be seen licking the wilderness of splinters under our feet
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: as we made our way back to the poop. Of course,
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: they very soon found out in the steamer that the
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: rope was gone. She gave a loud blast of her whistle.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: Her lights were seen sweeping in a wide circle. She
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: came up, ranging close alongside, and stopped. We were all
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: in a tight group on the poop looking at her.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: Every man had saved little bundle or a bag. Suddenly,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: a conical flame with a twisted top shot up forward
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: and threw upon the black sea a circle of light,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: with two vessels side by side and heaving gently in
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: its center. Captain Beard had been sitting on the grating,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: still and mute for hours, but now he rose slowly
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: and advanced in front of us to the mizzen shrouds.
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Captain Nash hailed, come along, look sharp, I have mail
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: bags on board. I'll take you in your boats to Singapore.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you, No, said our skipper. We must see the
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: last of the ship. I can't stand by any longer,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: shouted the other mails. You know, aye, aye, we're all right,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: very well. I'll report you in Singapore. Good bye, He
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: waved his hand. Our men dropped their bundles quietly. The
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: steamer moved ahead and passed out of the circle of light,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: vanished at once from our sight, dazzled by the fire
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: which burned fiercely. And then I knew that I would
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: see the east first as commander of a small boat.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: I thought it fine, And the fidelity to the old
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: ship was fine. We should see the last of her.
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: Oh the glamour of youth, Oh the fire of it,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: more dazzling than the flames of the burning ship, throwing
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: a magic light on the wide earth, leaping audaciously to
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: the sky, presently to be quenched by time, more cruel,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: more pitiless, more bitter than the sea, and like the
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: flames of the burning ship, surrounded by an impenetrable night.
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: The old man warned us, in his gentle and inflexible way,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: that it was part of our duty to save for
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: the underwriters as much as we could of the ship's gear.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: According we went to work aft while she blazed forward
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: to give us plenty of light. We lugged out a
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: lot of rubbish. What didn't we save an old barometer
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: fixed with an absurd quantity of screws nearly cost me
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: my life. A sudden rush of smoke came upon me,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: and I just got away in time. There were various stores,
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: bolts of canvas, coils of rope. The poop looked like
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: a marine bazaar, and the boats were lumbered to the gunwales.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: One would have thought the old man wanted to take
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: as much as he could of his first command with him.
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: He was very, very quiet, but off his balance. Evidently,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: would you believe it? He wanted to take a length
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: of all steam, cable and cadge anchor with him in
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: the long boat. We said, aye, aye, sir, deverentially, and
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: on the quiet, let the things slip overboard. The heavy
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: medicine chest went that way. Two bags of green coffee,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: tins of paint, fancy paint, oh lot of things. Then
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: I was ordered with two hands into the boats to
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: make a stowage and get them ready against the time
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: it would be proper for us to leave the ship.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: We put everything straight, stepped the longboat's masked for our
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: skipper who was in charge of her, and I was
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: not sorry to sit down for a moment. My face
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: felt raw every limb ached as if broken. I was
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: aware of all my ribs, and would have sworn to
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: twist in the backbone. The boats fast astern lay in
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: a deep shadow, and all around I could see the
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: circle of the sea lighted by the fire. A gigantic
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: flame arose forward, straight and clear. It flared there with
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: noises like the whir of wings, with rumbles as of thunder.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: There were cracks, detonations, and from the cone of flame
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: the sparks flew upward as man is borne to trouble,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: to leaky ships, and to ships that burn. What bothered
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: me was that the ship lying broadside to the swell
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: and to such wind as there was a mere breath,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: the boats would not keep a stern where they were safe,
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: but persisted in a pig headed way boats have in
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: getting under the counter and then swinging alongside. They were
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: knocking about dangerously and coming near the flame while the
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: ship rolled on them, and of course there was always
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: the danger of the masts going over the side at
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: any moment. I and my two boat keepers kept them
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: off as best we could with oars and boat hooks,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: but to be constantly at it became exasperating. Since there
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: was no reason why we should not leave at once.
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: We could not see those on board, nor could we
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: imagine what caused the delay. The boat keepers were swearing feebly,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: and I had not only my share of the work,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: but also had to keep at it two men who
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: showed a constant inclination to lay themselves down and let
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: things slide. At last, I hailed on deck there, and
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: some one looked over. We're ready here, I said. The
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: head disappeared and very soon popped up again. The captain says,
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: all right, sir, and to keep the boats well clear
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: of the ship. Half an hour passed. Suddenly there was
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: a frightful racket rattle, clanking of chain, hiss of water,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: and millions of sparks flew up into the shivering column
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: of smoke that stood leaning slightly above the ship. The
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: cath heads had burned away, and the two red hot
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: anchors had gone to the bottom, tearing off after them
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: two hundred fathom of red hot chain. The ship trembled,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: the mass of flame swayed as if ready to collapse,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: and the fore top gallant mast it darted down like
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: an arrow of fire, shot under and instantly leaped up
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: within an oar's length of the boats floated quietly, very
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: black on the luminous sea. I hailed the deck again.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: After some time, A man in an unexpectedly cheerful but
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: also muffled tone, as though he had been trying to
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: speak with his mouth shut, informed me coming directly, sir,
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: and vanished. For a long time, I heard nothing but
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: the whir and roar of the fire. There were also
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: whistling sounds. The boats jumped, tugged at the painters, ran
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: at each other, playfully knocked their sides together, or do
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: what we would swung in a bunch against the ship's side.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: I couldn't stand it any longer, and, swarming up a rope,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: clambered aboard over the stern. It was as bright as day.
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: Coming up like this, the sheet of fire facing me
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: was a terrifying sight, and the heat seemed hardly bearable
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: at first. On a setti cushion dragged out of the cabin,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Captain Beard, with his legs drawn up and one arm
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: over his head, slept with a light playing on him.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Do you know what the rest were busy about? They
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: were sitting on deck right aft round an open case,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: eating bread and cheese and drinking bottles stout on the
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: background of flames, twisting in fierce tongues above their heads.
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: They seemed at home like salamanders and looked like a
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: band of desperate pirates. The fire sparkled in the whites
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: of their eyes, gleamed on patches of white skin scenes
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: with the torn shirts. Each had the marks as of
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: a battle around him, bandaged heads, tied up arms, a
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: strip of dirty rag round a knee, and each man
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: had a bottle between his legs and a chunk of
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: cheese in his hand. Man got up with his handsome
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: and disreputable head, his hooked profile, his long white beard,
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: and with an uncorked bottle in his hand. He resembled
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: one of those reckless sea robbers of old, making merry
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: amidst violence and disaster. The last meal on board, he
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: explained solemnly, we had nothing to eat all day, and
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: it was no use leaving all this. He flourished the
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: bottle and indicated the sleeping skipper. He said he couldn't
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: swallow anything, so I got him to lie down. He
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: went on, and as I stared, I don't know whether
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: you're aware, young fellow. The man had no sleep to
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: speak off for days, and there'll be down little sleep
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: in the boats. There will be no boats by and
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: by if you fool about much longer, I said indignantly.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: I walked up to the skipper and shook him by
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: the shoulder. At last he opened his eyes, but did
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: not move. Time to leave her, sir, I said quietly.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: He got up painfully, looked at the flames as the
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: sea sparkling round the ship, and black black as ink.
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: Farther away. He looked at the stars shining dim through
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: a thin veil of smoke in a sky black black
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: as Erebus youngest. First, he said, And the ordinary seaman,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, got up,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: clambered over the taffrail and vanished. Others followed. One, on
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: the point of going over, stopped short to drain his bottle,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: and with a great swing of his arm, flung it
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: at the fire. Take this, he cried. The skipper lingered disconstlately,
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: and we left him to commune alone for a while
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: with his first command. Then I went up again and
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: brought him away. At last it was time. The iron
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: work on the poop was hot to the touch. Then
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: the painter of the longboat was cut, and the three boats,
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: tied together drifted clear of the ship. It was just
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: sixteen hours after the explosion when we abandoned her Man
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: had charge of the second boat, and I had the smallest,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: the fourteen foot thing. The longboat would have taken the
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: lot of us, but the skipper said, we must save
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: as much property as we could for the underwriters, and
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: so I got my first command. I had two men
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: with me, a bag of biscuits, a few tins of meat,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: and a breaker of water. I was ordered to keep
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: close to the longboat, that in case of bad weather,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: we might be taken in to her. And you know
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: what I thought. I thought I would part company as
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: soon as I could. I wanted to have my first
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: command all to myself. I wasn't going to sail in
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: a squadron. If there were a chance for independent cruising,
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: I would make land by myself. I would beat the
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: other boats. Youth, all youth, the silly, charming, beautiful youth.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: But we did not make a start at once. We
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: must see the last of the ship. And so the
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: boats drifted about that night, heaving and setting on the swell.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: The men dozed, waked, sighed, groaned, I looked at the
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: burning ship, between the darkness of earth and heaven. She
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: was burning fiercely upon a disc of purple sea, shot
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: by the blood red play of gleams, upon a disc
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: of water, glittering in sinister A high, clear flame, an
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: immense and lonely flame, ascended from the ocean, and from
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: its summit, the black smoke poured continuously at the sky.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: She burned furiously, mournful and imposing, like a funeral pile,
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: kindled in the night, surrounded by the sea, watched over
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: by the stars. A magnificent death had come, like a grace,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: like a gift, like a reward to that old ship
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: at the end of her laborious days. The surrender of
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: her weary ghost to the keeping of the stars and
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: sea was stirring, like the sight of a glorious triumph.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: The masts fell just before daybreak, and for a moment
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: there was a burst and turmoil of sparks that seemed
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: to fill with flying fire. The night, patient and watchful,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: the vast night, lying silent upon the sea. At daylight,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: she was only a charred shell, floating still under a
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: cloud of smoke and bearing a glowing mass of coal. Within.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Then the oars were got out, and the boats, forming
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: in a line, moved round her remains as if in procession,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: the long boat leading. As we pulled across her stern,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: a slim dart of fire shot out viciously at us,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: and suddenly she went down head first in a great
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: hiss of steam. The unconsumed stern was the last to sink.
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: But the paint had gone, had cracked, had peeled off,
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: and there were no letters. There was no word, no
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: stubborn device that was like her soul to flash at
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: the rising sun, her creed and her name. We made
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: our way north. A breeze sprang up, and about noon
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: all the boats came together for the last time. I
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: had no mast or sail in mine, but I made
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: a mast out of a spare owe and hoisted a
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: boat awning for a sail, with a boat hook for
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: a yard. She was certainly overmasted, but I had the
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: satisfaction of knowing that with the wind aft I could
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: beat the other two. I had to wait for them.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Then we all had a look at the captain's chart,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: and after a sociable meal of hard bread and water,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: got our last instructions. These were simple steer north and
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: keep together as much as possible. Be careful with that jury,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: rig Marlowe, said the captain and man, as I sailed
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: proudly past his boat, wrinkled his curved nose and hailed,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: you'll sail that ship of yours under water if you
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: don't look out, young fellow. He was a malicious old man,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: and made the deep sea where he sleeps now rock
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: him gently, rock him tenderly to the end of time.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: Before sunset, a thick rain squall passed over the two boats,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: which were far astern, and that was the last I
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: saw of them for a time. Next day I sat
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: steering my cockle shell, my first command, with nothing but
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: water and sky around me. I did sight in the
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: afternoon the upper sails of a ship far away, but
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: said nothing, and my men did not notice her. You see,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: I was afraid she might be homeward bound, and I
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: had no mind to turn back from the portals of
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: the east. I was steering for Java, another blessed name
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: like Bangkok. You know I steered many days. I need
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: not tell you what it is to be knocking about
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: in an open boat. I remember nights and days of
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: calm when we pulled, We pulled, and the boat seemed
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: to stand still as it bewitched within the circle of
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: the sea horizon. I remember the heat, the deluge of
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: rain squalls that kept us baling for dear life, but
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: filled our water cask. And I remember sixteen hours on end,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: with a mouth dry as a cinder, and a steering
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: oar over the stern, to keep my first command, head
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: on to a breaking sea. I did not know how
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: good a man I was till then I remember the
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: drawn faces, the dejected figures of my two men. And
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: I remember my youth and the feeling that will never
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: come back anymore, the feeling that I could last forever,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: outlast the sea, the earth, and all men. The deceitful
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: to vain, effort to death, The triumphant conviction of strength,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: the heat of life in the handful of dust, the
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: glow in the heart that with every year grows dim,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: grows cold, grows small, and expires and expires too soon
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: before life itself. And this is how I see the East.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: I have seen its secret places and have looked into
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: its very soul. But now I see it always from
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: a small boat. A high outline of mountains, blue and
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: afar in the morning, like faint mist at noon, a
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: jagged wall of purple at sunset. I had the feel
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: of the oar in my hand, the vision of a
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: scorching blue sea in my eyes. And I see a bay,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: a wide bay, smooth as glass and polished like ice,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: shimmering in the dark. A red light burns far off
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: upon the gloom of the land, and the night is
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: soft and warm. We drag at the oars with aching arms,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: and suddenly a puff of wind, of puff, faint and
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: tepid and laden with strange odors, of blossoms of aromatic wood,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: comes out of the still night, the first sigh of
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: the east upon my face that I can never forget.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: It was impalpable and enslaving, like a charm, like a
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: whispered promise of mysterious delight. We had been pulling this
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: finishing spell for eleven hours. Two pulled, and he whose
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: turney was to rest, sat at the tiller. We had
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: made out the red light in that bay and steered
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: for it, guessing must mark some small coasting port. We
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: passed two vessels, outlandish and high, sterned, sleeping at anchor
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: and approaching the light now very dim, ran the boat's
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: nose against the end of a jutting wharf. We were
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: blind with fatigue. My men dropped the oars and fell
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: off the thwarts, as if dead. I made fast to
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: a pile. A currant rippled softly. The scented obscurity of
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: the show was grouped into vast masses, a density of
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: colossal clumps of vegetation, probably mute and fantastic shapes. And
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: at their foot the semicircle of a beach gleamed faintly
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: like an illusion. There was not a light, not a stir,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: not a sound. The mysterious east faced me perfumed like
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: a flower, silent like death, dark like a grave. And
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: I sat weary, beyond expression, exulting like a conqueror, sleepless
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: and entranced, as if before a profound, a fateful enigma.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: A splashing of oars, a measured dip reverberating on the
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: level of water, intensified by the silence of the shore,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: into loud claps, made me jump up a boat. A
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: European boat was coming in. I invoked the name of
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: the dead. I hailed you, dear HOI A thin shout answered,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: it was the captain. I had beaten the flagship by
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: three hours, and I was glad to hear the old
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: man's voice. Tremulous and tired. Is it you, marlow? Mind
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: the end of that jetty, sir, I cried. He approached
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: cautiously and brought up with the deep sea lead line,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: which we had saved for the underwriters. I eased my
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: painter and fell alongside. He sat a broken figure at
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: the stern, wet with dew, his hands clasped in his lap.
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: His men were asleep already. I had a terrible time
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: of it. He murmured, man is behind not very far.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: We conversed in whispers, in low whispers, as if afraid
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: to wake up the land. Guns thunder earthquakes would not
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: have awakened the men. Just then. Looking around as we talked,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: I saw away at sea a bright light traveling in
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: the night. There's a steamer passing the bay. I said,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: she was not passing, she was entering, and she even
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: came close and anchored. I wish, said the old man,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: you would and find out whether she is English. Perhaps
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: they could give us a passage somewhere he seemed nervously anxious.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: So by dint of punching and kicking, I started one
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: of my men into a state of somnambulism, and giving
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: him an owe, took another and pulled toward the lights
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: of the steamer. There was a murmur of voices in
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: her metallic hollow clangs of the engine room, footsteps on
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: the deck, her ports shone round like dilated eyes. Shapes
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: moved about, and there was a shadowy man high up
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: on the bridge. He heard my oars, And then before
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: I could open my lips, the east spoke to me,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: but it was in a Western voice. A torrent of
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: words was poured into the enigmatical, the fateful silence, outlandish,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: angry words mixed with words, and even whole sentences of
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: good English less strange, but even more surprising. The voice
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: swore and cursed violently. It riddled the solemn piece of
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: the bay by a volley of abuse. It began by
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: calling me pig, and from that went crescendo into unmentionable
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: adjectives in English. The man up there raged aloud in
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: two languages, and with a sincerity in his fury that
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: almost convinced me I had in some way sinned against
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: the harmony of the universe. I could hardly see him,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: but began to think he would work himself into a fit.
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: Suddenly he ceased, and I could hear him snorting and
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: blowing like a paupoise. I said, what steamer? Is this prey? Hey?
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: What's that? And who are you? Castaway crew of an
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: English bark burnt at sea? We came here to night.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: I am the second mate. The captain is in the
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: longboat and wishes to know if you would give us
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: a passage somewhere. Oh my goodness, I say, this is
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: the celestial from Singapore on her return trip. I'll arrange
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: with your captain in the morning. And I say, did
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: you hear me just now? I should think the whole
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: bay heard you. I thought you were a shore boat.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: Now look here, this infernal, lazy scoundrel of a caretaker
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: has gone to sleep again. Curse him. The light is
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: out and I nearly ran foul at the end of
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: this damned jetty. This is the third time he plays
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: me this trick. Now, I ask you, can anybody stand
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: this kind of thing? It's enough to drive a man
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: out of his mind. I'll report him. I'll get the
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: assistant resident to give him the sack by See, there's
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: no light. It's out, isn't it. I take you to
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: witness the light's out. There should be a light, you know,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: a red light on the There was a light, I said, mildly.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: But it's out. Man. What's the use of talking like this?
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: You can see for yourself it's out, don't you. If
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: you had to take a valuable steamer on this god
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: forsaken coast, you'd want a light too. I'll kick him
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: from end to end of his miserable wharf. You see.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: If I don't, I will, so I may tell my
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: captain you'll take us. I broke in. Yes, I'll take you.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: Good night, he said brusquely. I pulled back, made fast
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: again to the jetty, and then went to sleep. At
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: last I had faced the silence of the east. I
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: had heard some of its languages. But when I opened
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: my eyes again, the silence was as complete as though
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: it had never been broken. I was lying in a
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: flood of light, and the sky had never looked so far,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: so high before. I opened my eyes and lay without moving.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: And then I saw the men of the east. They
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: were looking at me. The whole length of the jetty
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: was full of people. I saw brown bronze, yellow faces,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: the black eyes, the glitter, the color of an eastern crowd.
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: And all these beings stared without a murmur, without a sigh,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: without a movement. They stared down at the boats, at
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: the sleeping men who at night had come to them
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: from the sea. Nothing moved. The fronds of palms stood
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: still against the sky. Not a branch stirred along the shore,
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: and the brown roofs of hidden houses peeped through the
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: green foliage, through the big leaves that hung, shining and still,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: like leaves forged of heavy metal. This was the east
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: of the ancient navigators, so old, so mysterious, resplendent and somber,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: living and unchanged, full of danger and promise. And these
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: were the men. I sat up. Suddenly A wave of
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: movement passed through the crowd, from end to end, passing along.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: The heads swayed, the bodies ran along the jetty like
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: a ripple on the water, like a breath of wind
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: on a field. And all were still again. I see
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: it now, the wide sweep of the bay, the glittering sands,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: the wealth of green, infinite and varied, the sea blue
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: like the sea of a dream, the crowd of attentive faces,
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: the blaze of vivid colour, the water reflecting it all,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: the curve of the shop, the jetty, the high sterned
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: outlandish craft floating still, and the three boats with tired
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: men from the west sleeping, unconscious of the land and
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: the people, and of the violence of sunshine. They slept
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: thrown against the thwarts, curled on bottom boards, in the
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: careless attitudes of death. The head of the old skipper
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: leaning back in the stern of the longboat had fallen
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: on his breast, and he looked as though he would
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: never wake. Farther out old man's face was upturned to
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: the sky, with a long white beard spread out on
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: his breast as though it had been shot where he
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: sat at the tiller, and a man all in a
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: heap in the boughs of the boat, slept with both
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: arms embracing the stem head, and with his cheek laid
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: on the gunwale. The east looked at them without a sound.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: I have known its fascination since I have seen the
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: mysterious shores, the still water, the lands of brown nations,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: where a stealthy nemesis lies in wait, pursues, overtakes so
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: many of the conquering race, who are proud of their wisdom,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: of their knowledge, of their strength. But for me, all
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: the East is contained in that vision of my youth.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: It is all in that moment when I opened my
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: young eyes on it. I came upon it from a
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: tussle with the sea, and I was young, and I
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: saw it looking at me. And this is all that
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: is left of it, Only a moment, a moment of strength,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: of romance, of glamour of youth, a flicker of sunshine
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: upon a strange shore, the time to remember, the time
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: for a sigh, and goodbye night, goodbye. He drank ah
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: the good old time, the good old time youth, and
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: the sea, glamour and the sea, the good strong sea,
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: the soul bitter seed that could whisper to you and
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: roar at you and knock your breath out of you.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: He drank again. By all that's wonderful. It is the sea,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: I believe, the sea itself? Or is it youth alone?
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: Who can tell? But you here, you all had something
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: out of life, money, love, whatever one gets on shore
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: and tell me, wasn't that the best time? That time
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: when you were young at sea, young and had nothing
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: on the sea that gives nothing except hard knocks and
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes a chance to feel your strength. That only what
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: you all regret. And we all nodded at him, the
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: man of finance, the man of accounts, the man of law.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: We all nodded at him. Over the polished table that,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: like a still sheet of brown water, reflected our faces, lined, wrinkled,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: our faces marked by toil, by deceptions, by success, by love,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: our weary eyes looking still, looking always, looking anxiously for
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: something out of life, that, while it is expected, is
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: already gone, has passed unseen, in a sigh, in a flash,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: Together with the youth, with the strength, with the romance
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: of illusions. End of Youth and Narrative by Joseph Conrad