again, and their very existence utterly forgotten, I believe,
before a French river pilot came on board to take our ship down,

empty as she came, into the Havre roads. You may think that this
state of forced idlenessfavoured some advance in the fortunes of

Almayer and his daughter. Yet it was not so. As if it were some
sort of evil spell, my banjoist cabin mate's interruption, as

related above, had arrested them short at the point of that
fateful sunset for many weeks together. It was always thus with

this book, begun in '89 and finished in '94--with that shortest
of all the novels which it was to be my lot to write. Between

its openingexclamationcalling Almayer to his dinner in his
wife's voice and Abdullah's (his enemy) mentalreference to the

God of Islam--"The Merciful, the Compassionate"--which closes the
book, there were to come several long sea passages, a visit (to

use the elevated phraseology suitable to the occasion) to the
scenes (some of them) of my childhood and the realization of

childhood's vain words, expressing a light-hearted and romantic
whim.

It was in 1868, when nine years old or thereabouts, that while
looking at a map of Africa of the time and putting my finger on

the blank space then representing the unsolved mystery of that
continent, I said to myself, with absoluteassurance and an

amazing audacity which are no longer in my character now:
"When I grow up I shall go THERE."

And of course I thought no more about it till after a quarter of
a century or so an opportunity offered to go there--as if the sin

of childishaudacity were to be visited on my mature head. Yes.
I did go there: THERE being the region of Stanley Falls, which in

'68 was the blankest of blank spaces on the earth's figured
surface. And the MS. of "Almayer's Folly," carried about me as

if it were a talisman or a treasure, went THERE, too. That it
ever came out of THERE seems a special dispensation of

Providence, because a good many of my other properties,
infinitely more valuable and useful to me, remained behind

through unfortunate accidents of transportation. I call to mind,
for instance, a speciallyawkward turn of the Congo between

Kinchassa and Leopoldsville--more particularly when one had to
take it at night in a big canoe with only half the proper number

of paddlers. I failed in being the second white man on record
drowned at that interesting spot through the upsetting of a

canoe. The first was a young Belgian officer, but the accident
happened some months before my time, and he, too, I believe, was

going home; not perhaps quite so ill as myself--but still he was
going home. I got round the turn more or less alive, though I

was too sick to care whether I did or not, and, always with
"Almayer's Folly" among my diminishing baggage, I arrived at that

delectable capital, Boma, where, before the departure of the
steamer which was to take me home, I had the time to wish myself

dead over and over again with perfect sincerity. At that date
there were in existence only seven chapters of "Almayer's Folly,"

but the chapter in my history which followed was that of a long,
long illness and very dismal convalescence. Geneva, or more

precisely the hydropathic establishment of Champel, is rendered
forever famous by the termination of the eighth chapter in the

history of Almayer's decline and fall. The events of the ninth
are inextricably mixed up with the details of the proper

management of a waterside warehouse owned by a certain city firm
whose name does not matter. But that work, undertaken to

accustom myself again to the activities of a healthyexistence,
soon came to an end. The earth had nothing to hold me with for

very long. And then that memorable story, like a cask of choice
Madeira, got carried for three years to and fro upon the sea.

Whether this treatment improved its flavour or not, of course I
would not like to say. As far as appearance is concerned it

certainly did nothing of the kind. The whole MS. acquired a
faded look and an ancient, yellowish complexion. It became at

last unreasonable to suppose that anything in the world would
ever happen to Almayer and Nina. And yet something most unlikely

to happen on the high seas was to wake them up from their state
of suspended animation.

What is it that Novalis says: "It is certain my conviction gains
infinitely the moment an other soul will believe in it." And

what is a novel if not a conviction of our fellow-men's existence
strong enough to take upon itself a form of imagined life clearer

than reality and whose accumulated verisimilitude of selected
episodes puts to shame the pride of documentary history.

Providence which saved my MS. from the Congo rapids brought it to
the knowledge of a helpful soul far out on the open sea. It

would be on my part the greatest ingratitude ever to forget the
sallow, sunken face and the deep-set, dark eyes of the young

Cambridge man (he was a "passenger for his health" on board the
good ship Torrens outward bound to Australia) who was the first

reader of "Almayer's Folly"--the very first reader I ever had.
"Would it bore you very much in reading a MS. in a handwriting

like mine?" I asked him one evening, on a sudden impulse at the
end of a longish conversation whose subject was Gibbon's History.

Jacques (that was his name) was sitting in my cabin one stormy
dog-watch below, after bring me a book to read from his own

travelling store.
"Not at all," he answered, with his courteous intonation and a

faint smile. As I pulled a drawer open his suddenly aroused
curiosity gave him a watchful expression. I wonder what he

expected to see. A poem, maybe. All that's beyond guessing now.
He was not a cold, but a calm man, still more subdued by

disease--a man of few words and of an unassuming modesty in
general intercourse, but with something uncommon in the whole of

his person which set him apart from the undistinguished lot of
our sixty passengers. His eyes had a thoughtful, introspective

look. In his attractive reserved manner and in a veiled
sympathetic voice he asked:

"What is this?" "It is a sort of tale," I answered, with an
effort. "It is not even finished yet. Nevertheless, I would

like to know what you think of it." He put the MS. in the
breast-pocket of his jacket; I remember perfectly his thin, brown

fingers folding it lengthwise. "I will read it to-morrow," he
remarked, seizing the door handle; and then watching the roll of

the ship for a propitious moment, he opened the door and was
gone. In the moment of his exit I heard the sustained booming of

the wind, the swish of the water on the decks of the Torrens, and
the subdued, as if distant, roar of the rising sea. I noted the

growing disquiet in the great restlessness of the ocean, and
responded professionally to it with the thought that at eight

o'clock, in another half hour or so at the farthest, the
topgallant sails would have to come off the ship.

Next day, but this time in the first dog watch, Jacques entered
my cabin. He had a thick woollen muffler round his throat, and

the MS. was in his hand. He tendered it to me with a steady
look, but without a word. I took it in silence. He sat down on

the couch and still said nothing. I opened and shut a drawer
under my desk, on which a filled-up log-slate lay wide open in

its wooden frame waiting to be copied neatly into the sort of
book I was accustomed to write with care, the ship's log-book. I

turned my back squarely on the desk. And even then Jacques never
offered a word. "Well, what do you say?" I asked at last. "Is

it worth finishing?" This question expressed exactly the whole
of my thoughts.

"Distinctly," he answered, in his sedate, veiled voice, and then
coughed a little.

"Were you interested?" I inquired further, almost in a whisper.
"Very much!"

In a pause I went on meeting instinctively the heavy rolling of
the ship, and Jacques put his feet upon the couch. The curtain

of my bed-place swung to and fro as if it were a punkah, the