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End of the Tether-Part17_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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a definite rule! He was afraid of missing some recondite



principle in the overwhelmingwealth of his material.

What could it be? and for half an hour he would remain



dead still, bent low over the desk, without twitching a

muscle. At his back the whole berth would be thick



with a heavy body of smoke, as if a bomb had burst

in there, unnoticed, unheard.



At last he would lock up the desk with the decision of

unshaken confidence, jump and go out. He would



walk swiftly back and forth on that part of the foredeck

which was kept clear of the lumber and of the bodies of



the native passengers. They were a great nuisance, but

they were also a source of profit that could not be dis-



dained. He needed every penny of profit the Sofala

could make. Little enough it was, in all conscience!



The incertitude of chance gave him no concern, since

he had somehow arrived at the conviction that, in the



course of years, every number was bound to have his

winning turn. It was simply a matter of time and of



taking as many tickets as he could afford for every

drawing. He generally took rather more; all the earn-



ings of the ship went that way, and also the wages he

allowed himself as chief engineer. It was the wages he



paid to others that he begrudged with a reasoned and

at the same time a passionate regret. He scowled at



the lascars with their deck brooms, at the quarter-

masters rubbing the brass rails with greasy rags; he



was eager to shake his fist and roar abuse in bad Malay

at the poor carpenter--a timid, sickly, opium-fuddled



Chinaman, in loose blue drawers for all costume, who

invariably dropped his tools and fled below, with stream-



ing tail and shaking all over, before the fury of that

"devil." But it was when he raised up his eyes to the



bridge where one of these sailor frauds was always

planted by law in charge of his ship that he felt almost



dizzy with rage. He abominated them all; it was an

old feud, from the time he first went to sea, an un-



licked cub with a great opinion of himself, in the

engine-room. The slights that had been put upon him.



The persecutions he had suffered at the hands of skip-

pers--of absolute nobodies in a steamship after all.



And now that he had risen to be a shipowner they were

still a plague to him: he had absolutely to pay away



precious money to the conceiteduseless loafers:--As if

a fully qualified engineer--who was the owner as well--



were not fit to be trusted with the whole charge of a

ship. Well! he made it pretty warm for them; but it



was a poor consolation. He had come in time to hate

the ship too for the repairs she required, for the coal-



bills he had to pay, for the poor beggarly freights she

earned. He would clench his hand as he walked and hit



the rail a sudden blow, viciously, as though she could

be made to feel pain. And yet he could not do without



er; he needed her; he must hang on to her tooth and

nail to keep his head above water till the expected flood



of fortune came sweeping up and landed him safely on

the high shore of his ambition.



It was now to do nothing, nothing whatever, and have

plenty of money to do it on. He had tasted of power,



the highest form of it his limited experience was aware

of--the power of shipowning. What a deception!



Vanity of vanities! He wondered at his folly. He had

thrown away the substance for the shadow. Of the



gratification of wealth he did not know enough to excite

his imagination with any visions of luxury. How could



he--the child of a drunken boiler-maker--going

straight from the workshop into the engine-room of a



north-country collier! But the notion of the absolute

idleness of wealth he could very well conceive. He



reveled in it, to forget his present troubles; he imagined

himself walking about the streets of Hull (he knew their



gutters well as a boy) with his pockets full of sov-

ereigns. He would buy himself a house; his married



sisters, their husbands, his old workshop chums, would

render him infinitehomage. There would be nothing






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