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End of the Tether-Part1_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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In those bygone days he had handled many thousands



of pounds of his employers' money and of his own; he

had attended faithfully, as by law a shipmaster is ex-



pected to do, to the conflicting interests of owners,

charterers, and underwriters. He had never lost a ship



or consented to a shady transaction; and he had lasted

well, outlasting in the end the conditions that had gone



to the making of his name. He had buried his wife (in

the Gulf of Petchili), had married off his daughter to



the man of her unlucky choice, and had lost more than

an ample competence in the crash of the notorious Tra-



vancore and Deccan Banking Corporation, whose down-

fall had shaken the East like an earthquake. And he



was sixty-five years old.

II



His age sat lightly enough on him; and of his ruin

he was not ashamed. He had not been alone to believe



in the stability of the Banking Corporation. Men whose

judgment in matters of finance was as expert as his sea-



manship had commended the prudence of his invest-

ments, and had themselves lost much money in the great



failure. The only difference between him and them was

that he had lost his all. And yet not his all. There



had remained to him from his lost fortune a very pretty

little bark, Fair Maid, which he had bought to occupy



his leisure of a retired sailor--"to play with," as he ex-

pressed it himself.



He had formally declared himself tired of the sea the

year preceding his daughter's marriage. But after the



young couple had gone to settle in Melbourne he found

out that he could not make himself happy on shore. He



was too much of a merchant sea-captain for mere yacht-

ing to satisfy him. He wanted the illusion of affairs;



and his acquisition of the Fair Maid preserved the con-

tinuity of his life. He introduced her to his acquaint-



ances in various ports as "my last command." When

he grew too old to be trusted with a ship, he would



lay her up and go ashore to be buried, leaving directions

in his will to have the bark towed out and scuttled



decently in deep water on the day of the funeral. His

daughter would not grudge him the satisfaction of



knowing that no stranger would handle his last command

after him. With the fortune he was able to leave her,



the value of a 500-ton bark was neither here nor there.

All this would be said with a jocular twinkle in his eye:



the vigorous old man had too much vitality for the sen-

timentalism of regret; and a little wistfullywithal, be-



cause he was at home in life, taking a genuine pleasure

in its feelings and its possessions; in the dignity of his



reputation and his wealth, in his love for his daughter,

and in his satisfaction with the ship--the plaything of



his lonelyleisure.

He had the cabin arranged in accordance with his



simple ideal of comfort at sea. A big bookcase (he was

a great reader) occupied one side of his stateroom; the



portrait of his late wife, a flat bituminous oil-painting

representing the profile and one long black ringlet of



a young woman, faced his bedplace. Three chronometers

ticked him to sleep and greeted him on waking with



the tiny competition of their beats. He rose at five every

day. The officer of the morning watch, drinking his



early cup of coffee aft by the wheel, would hear through

the wide orifice of the copper ventilators all the splash-



ings, blowings, and splutterings of his captain's toilet.

These noises would be followed by a sustained deep



murmur of the Lord's Prayer recited in a loud earnest

voice. Five minutes afterwards the head and shoulders



of Captain Whalley emerged out of the companion-

hatchway. Invariably he paused for a while on the



stairs, looking all round at the horizon; upwards at the

trim of the sails; inhaling deep draughts of the fresh



air. Only then he would step out on the poop, acknowl-

edging the hand raised to the peak of the cap with a






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