A Personal Record

"Almayer's Folly." Having confessed that my first novel was begun in idleness - a holiday task - I think I have also given the impression that it was a much-delayed book

began to write that novel I had written nothing but letters, and not very many of these. I never made a note of a fact, of an impression, or of an anecdote in my life. The conception of a planned book was entirely outside my mental range when I sat down to write; the ambition of being an author had never turned up among those gracious imaginary existences one creates fondly for oneself at times in the stillness and immobility of a day-dream: yet it stands clear as the su

was not in a hurry. I pulled the cord casually, and while the faint tinkling somewhere down in the basement went on, I charged my pipe in the usual way and I looked for the match-box with glances distraught indeed, but exhibiting, I am ready to swear, no signs of a fine frenzy. I was composed enough to perceive after some considerable time the match-box lying there on the mantelpiece right under my nose. And all this was beautifully and safely usual. Before I had thrown down the match my landlady's daughter appeared with her calm, pale face and an inquisitive look, in the doorway. Of late it was the landlady's da

e been a great reader, as is not perhaps wonderful in a child who was never aware of learning to read. At ten years of age I had read much of Victor Hugo and other romantics. I had read in Polish and in French, history, voyages, novels; I knew "Gil Blas" and "Don Quixote" in abridged editions; I had read in early boyhood Polish poets and some French poets, but I cannot say what I read on the evening before I began to write myself. I believe it was a novel, and it is quite possible that it was one of Anthony Trollope's novels. It is very likely. My acquaintance with him was then very recent. He is one of the English novelists whose works I read for the first time in English. With men of European reputation, with Dickens and Walter Scott and Thackeray, it was otherwise. My first introduction to English imaginative literature was "Nicholas Nickleby." It is extraordinary how well Mrs. Nickleby could chatter disconnectedly in Polish and the sinister Ralph rage in that language. As to the Crummles family and the family of the learned Squeers it seemed as natural to them as their native speech. It was, I have no

he page

ave tried to discover since the reason for this mildness, and I imagine that all unknown to myself I had earned, in my father's mind, the right to some latitude in my relations with his writing-table. It was only a month before - or perhaps it was only a week before - that I had read to hi

a 5s. one-volume edition of the dramatic works of William Shakespeare, read in Falmouth, at odd moments of the day, to the noisy accompaniment of calkers' mallets driving oakum into the deck-seams of a ship in dry-dock. We had run in, in a sinking condition and with the crew refusing duty after a month of weary battling with the gales of the North Atlantic. Books are a

n autumn day with an opaline atmosphere, a veiled, semi-opaque, lustrous day, with fiery points and flashes of red sunlight on the roofs and windows opposite, while the trees of the square, with all their leaves gone, were like the tracings of I

. It is very clear that I was in no haste to take the plunge into my writing life, if as plunge this first attempt may be described. My whole being was steeped deep in the indolence of a sailor away from the sea, the scene of never-ending labour and of unceasing duty. For utter surrender to in indolence you cannot beat a sailor ashore when that mood is o

out canoe on the river there was nothing moving within sight. I had just come up yawning from my cabin. The serang and the Malay crew were overhauling the cargo chains and trying the winches; their voices sounded subdued on the deck below, and their movements were languid. That tropical daybreak was chilly. The Malay quartermaster, coming up to get something from the lockers on the bridge, shivered visibly. The f

ttle of soda-water on the after-sky light with my good friend and commander, Captain C--. At least I heard his name distinctly pronounced several times in a lot of talk in Malay language. Oh, yes, I heard it quite distinctly - Almayer, Almayer - and saw Captain C-- smile, while the fat, dingy Rajah laughed audibly. To hear a Malay Rajah laugh outright is a rare experience, I can as sure you. And I overheard more of Almayer's name among our deck passengers (mostly wandering traders of good repute) as they sat all over the ship - each man fenced round with bundles and boxes - on mats, on pillows, on quilts, on billets of wood, conversing of Island affairs. Upon my word, I heard the mutter of Almayer's name faintly at midnight, while making my way aft from the bridge to look at the patent taffrail-log tinkling its quarter miles in the great silence of the sea. I don't mean to say that our passengers dreamed aloud of Almayer, but it is indubitable that two of them at least, who could not sleep, apparently, and were trying to charm away the trouble of insomnia by a little whispered talk at that ghostly hour, were referrin

rassed countenance, round and flat, with that curl of

morn

morn

chief mate he was accustomed to see; and I think that this novelt

ll this evening," he

hat, having picked up the beacon at the mouth of the river just before dark and the tide serving, Capt

his own pocket," I concluded, dis

," said

his feet a little; he wore straw slippers with thick soles. The morning fog had thickened considerably. Everything roun

accents of a man accustomed to the buffe

't got such a thing

dedly in the way, too. I was very anxious to have him landed before I began to handle the cargo. Almayer remained looking up at me for a long while, with incredulous and melan

he worse for the passage

he cleared his throat and looked down again at hi

hing pneumonia or bronchitis or some thing, w

itiated by a show of

uch as to say that even that way of escap

n. . ." he mumbl

ny for you at once, and you can lead him home. I

ed doubtful.

front of you. I'd much rather do it before the hatches are off. The

lter?" postul

r." And without waiting any mor

nd Tuan Alm

of foam flecked his broad little chest, his eyes blazed. He was something under eleven hands; he was fierce, terrible, angry, warlike; he said ha! ha! distinctly; he raged and thumped - and sixteen able-bodied kalashes stood round him like disconcerted nurses round a spoiled and passionate child. He whisked his tail incessantly; he arched his pretty neck; he was perfectly delightful; he was charmingly naughty. There was not an atom

to his mane, to his tail; they lay in piles across his back, seventeen in all. The carpenter, seizing the hook of the cargo-chain, flung himself on the top of them. A very satisfactory petty officer, too, but he stuttered. Have you ever heard a li

lmayer hailed, i

I s

the tops of the men's heads; he could only hear the scuffle, the mighty thud

k his legs," he entr

e's all right no

y's body; the kalashes sprang off simultaneously in all directions, rolling over ea

ension of seeing the animal snatche

y. The rattle of the winch stopped, and in a tense, impr

little sheep which hangs on the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. I had no idea that anything in the shape of a horse could be so limp as that, either living or dead. His wild mane hung down lumpily, a mere mass of inanimate horsehair; his aggressive ears had collapse

hat wi

onless like a bell-pull in front of Almayer. Everything was very still. I suggested amicably that he shou

, then! L

inking, almost without looking, he disengaged the hook suddenly from the sling, and the cargo-chain, after hitting the pony's quarters, swung back against the ship's side wit

isurely and painful manner. The kalashes lining the rail all had their mouths open. The mist f

nage to let him get away

ing palm of his right hand, b

Are there any fences anywhere in this fog? Can

rugged his

be about. They will get ho

about my canvas sling? - he's carried it off. I

ide of the fore-deck they had been whisking their tails into the other door of the galley. These cows were not for Alma

"Hadn't you better call your men together or something? He will thr

he canvas sling which he had round his body. The whole crew of the steamer, with the exception of firemen and engineers, rushed up the jetty, past the thoughtful Almayer, and vanished from my sight. The white fog swall

o see him very particularly?" he asked me, in a l

. I will g

ack from the bath-room, big and broad-chested, was brushi

e wanted to see you ve

impossible to mention Almayer's name without a smile of a sort. It had not to be necessari

ot away fro

sir. H

re i

ss only

lmayer. Let h

e doorway to Almayer, who had remained aft, with downcast eyes, on the very spot where I had le

y to tell you," were

ss of tone w

und his neck and a hammer in his hand, roamed about the empty decks, knocking out the wedges of the hatches and dropping them into

and smiled indifferently. He was an abstemious man, with a good

with the old man. Some v

ned endless yarn," obse

the Malay Archipelago without a smile, there was nothing amusing whatever. That morning he breakfasted with us silently, looking mostly into his cup. I informed him that my men came upon his pony capering in the fog on the very brink of the eight-foot-deep well in which he kept his store of g

itude seemed foreign

mum

n that pira

has been in the ship eleven

Almayer muttered

up, in front of Almayer's house, to a post of the veranda. We were silent for a long time. All at once Almayer,

't know what

mayer, half dressed as he was in his cretonne pajamas and the thin cotton singlet, remained on board, ling

f steward, the handsomest and most sympathetic of Chinamen, catching my eye, nodded kn

sed him, easily, "you haven't

d at it when I spoke, and for a moment it looked as if he were on the point of opening his fingers and letting the

ong out from Eur

I left a ship in Samarang with a hurt back, and h

sig

s very b

dee

. . . See t

resembled a patch of snow creeping and swaying across the di

of faith, hope, or pride. Thereupon, with the same absence of any sort of sustaining spirit, he

the house. I had expected more pomp in the ceremony. The gift had surely its special quality, multiple and rare. From the only flock on

able to realize . . . it's impossible to realize . . . ." His voice sank into a languid mutter. "And when

tonished me by giving a start

f," he burst out, h

a mumbled invitation to dine at his house that evening with my captain, an invita

a change of cooking, common civility, the talk and the smiles of the previous twenty days, every condition of my existence at that moment and place made irresistibly for acceptance; and, crowning all that, there was the ignorance - the ignorance, I say - the fatal want of fore knowledg

mes, so far. The number of geese he had called into being under adverse climatic conditions was considerably more than fourteen. The tale of volumes will never overtake the co

t his attitude would have been? This is so

se (birds sacred to Jupiter)- and he addresses me in the stillness of that passionless region, neither light nor darkness, neither sound no

measured remonstrances, which should not disturb, of course, the solem

floated naked over the waters about the equator. I wrapped round its unhonoured form the royal mantle of the tropics, and have essayed to put into the hollow sound the very anguish of paternity - feats which you did not demand from me - but remember that all the toil and all the pain were mine. In your earthly life you haunted me, Almayer. Consider that this was taking a great liberty. Since you were always complaining of being lost to the world, you should remember that if I had not believed enough in your existence to let you haunt my rooms in Bessborough Gardens, you would have been much more lost. You affirm that had I been capable of looking at you with a mo

pared to placate Almayer in the Elysian Abode of Shades, since it has come to pass that