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An Outcast of the Islands-Part1_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Disconnected though it was, that phrase, as food for thought, was



distinctly worth hearing. We left the river three days

afterwards and I never returned to Sambir; but whatever happened



to the protagonist of my Willems nobody can deny that I have

recorded for him a less squalid fate.



J. C.

1919.



PART I

AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS



CHAPTER ONE

When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar



honesty, it was with an inwardassertion of unflinching resolve

to fall back again into the monotonous but safe stride of virtue



as soon as his little excursion into the wayside quagmires had

produced the desired effect. It was going to be a short



episode--a sentence in brackets, so to speak--in the flowing tale

of his life: a thing of no moment, to be done unwillingly, yet



neatly, and to be quickly forgotten. He imagined that he could

go on afterwards looking at the sunshine, enjoying the shade,



breathing in the perfume of flowers in the small garden before

his house. He fancied that nothing would be changed, that he



would be able as heretofore to tyrannize good-humouredly over his

half-caste wife, to notice with tender contempt his pale yellow



child, to patronize loftily his dark-skinned brother-in-law, who

loved pink neckties and wore patent-leather boots on his little



feet, and was so humble before the white husband of the lucky

sister. Those were the delights of his life, and he was unable to



conceive that the moral significance of any act of his could

interfere with the very nature of things, could dim the light of



the sun, could destroy the perfume of the flowers, the submission

of his wife, the smile of his child, the awe-struck respect of



Leonard da Souza and of all the Da Souza family. That family's

admiration was the great luxury of his life. It rounded and



completed his existence in a perpetualassurance of

unquestionable superiority. He loved to breathe the coarse



incense they offered before the shrine of the successful white

man; the man that had done them the honour to marry their



daughter, sister, cousin; the rising man sure to climb very high;

the confidential clerk of Hudig & Co. They were a numerous and



an unclean crowd, living in ruined bamboo houses, surrounded by

neglected compounds, on the outskirts of Macassar. He kept them



at arm's length and even further off, perhaps, having no

illusions as to their worth. They were a half-caste, lazy lot,



and he saw them as they were--ragged, lean, unwashed, undersized

men of various ages, shuffling about aimlessly in slippers;



motionless old women who looked like monstrous bags of pink

calico stuffed with shapeless lumps of fat, and deposited askew



upon decaying rattan chairs in shady corners of dusty verandahs;

young women, slim and yellow, big-eyed, long-haired, moving



languidly amongst the dirt and rubbish of their dwellings as if

every step they took was going to be their very last. He heard



their shrill quarrellings, the squalling of their children, the

grunting of their pigs; he smelt the odours of the heaps of



garbage in their courtyards: and he was greatly disgusted. But

he fed and clothed that shabbymultitude; those degenerate



descendants of Portuguese conquerors; he was their providence; he

kept them singing his praises in the midst of their laziness, of



their dirt, of their immense and hopeless squalor: and he was

greatly delighted. They wanted much, but he could give them all



they wanted without ruining himself. In exchange he had their

silent fear, their loquacious love, their noisy veneration. It






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