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Notes on Life and Letters-Part21_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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be apprenticed. Was that the case?



It was. He was good enough to say then, "Of course I see that you

are a gentleman. But your wish is to get a berth before the mast



as an Able Seaman if possible. Is that it?"

It was certainly my wish; but he stated doubtfully that he feared



he could not help me much in this. There was an Act of Parliament

which made it penal to procure ships for sailors. "An Act-of -



Parliament. A law," he took pains to impress it again and again on

my foreign understanding, while I looked at him in consternation.



I had not been half an hour in London before I had run my head

against an Act of Parliament! What a hopeless adventure! However,



the BAROCCO apostle was a resourceful person in his way, and we

managed to get round the hard letter of it without damage to its



fine spirit. Yet, strictlyspeaking, it was not the conduct of a

good citizen; and in retrospect there is an unfilial flavour about



that early sin of mine. For this Act of Parliament, the Merchant

Shipping Act of the Victorian era, had been in a manner of speaking



a father and mother to me. For many years it had regulated and

disciplined my life, prescribed my food and the amount of my



breathing space, had looked after my health and tried as much as

possible to secure my personal safety in a risky calling. It isn't



such a bad thing to lead a life of hard toil and plain duty within

the four corners of an honest Act of Parliament. And I am glad to



say that its seventies have never been applied to me.

In the year 1878, the year of "Peace with Honour," I had walked as



lone as any human being in the streets of London, out of Liverpool

Street Station, to surrender myself to its care. And now, in the



year of the war waged for honour and conscience more than for any

other cause, I was there again, no longer alone, but a man of



infinitely dear and close ties grown since that time, of work done,

of words written, of friendships secured. It was like the closing



of a thirty-six-year cycle.

All unaware of the War Angel already awaiting, with the trumpet at



his lips, the stroke of the fatal hour, I sat there, thinking that

this life of ours is neither long nor short, but that it can appear



very wonderful, entertaining, and pathetic, with symbolic images

and bizarre associations crowded into one half-hour of



retrospective musing.

I felt, too, that this journey, so suddenly entered upon, was bound



to take me away from daily life's actualities at every step. I

felt it more than ever when presently we steamed out into the North



Sea, on a dark night fitful with gusts of wind, and I lingered on

deck, alone of all the tale of the ship's passengers. That sea was



to me something unforgettable, something much more than a name. It

had been for some time the school-room of my trade. On it, I may



safely say, I had learned, too, my first words of English. A wild

and stormy abode, sometimes, was that confined, shallow-water



academy of seamanship from which I launched myself on the wide

oceans. My teachers had been the sailors of the Norfolk shore;



coast men, with steady eyes, mighty limbs, and gentle voice; men of

very few words, which at least were never bare of meaning. Honest,



strong, steady men, sobered by domestic ties, one and all, as far

as I can remember.



That is what years ago the North Sea I could hear growling in the

dark all round the ship had been for me. And I fancied that I must



have been carrying its voice in my ear ever since, for nothing

could be more familiar than those short, angry sounds I was



listening to with a smile of affectionate recognition.

I could not guess that before many days my old schoolroom would be



desecrated by violence, littered with wrecks, with death walking

its waves, hiding under its waters. Perhaps while I am writing



these words the children, or maybe the grandchildren, of my pacific

teachers are out in trawlers, under the Naval flag, dredging for



German submarine mines.

III.






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