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<h1> AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS </h1>
<h2> by Joseph Conrad </h2>
<h3> <i>Pues el delito mayor Del hombre es haber nacito</i><br/> CALDERON <br/> </h3>
<h3> TO EDWARD LANCELOT SANDERSON </h3>
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<h2> AUTHOR'S NOTE </h2>
<p>"An Outcast of the Islands" is my second novel in the absolute sense of
the word; second in conception, second in execution, second as it were in
its essence. There was no hesitation, half-formed plan, vague idea, or the
vaguest reverie of anything else between it and "Almayer's Folly." The
only doubt I suffered from, after the publication of "Almayer's Folly,"
was whether I should write another line for print. Those days, now grown
so dim, had their poignant moments. Neither in my mind nor in my heart had
I then given up the sea. In truth I was clinging to it desperately, all
the more desperately because, against my will, I could not help feeling
that there was something changed in my relation to it. "Almayer's Folly,"
had been finished and done with. The mood itself was gone. But it had left
the memory of an experience that, both in thought and emotion was
unconnected with the sea, and I suppose that part of my moral being which
is rooted in consistency was badly shaken. I was a victim of contrary
stresses which produced a state of immobility. I gave myself up to
indolence. Since it was impossible for me to face both ways I had elected
to face nothing. The discovery of new values in life is a very chaotic
experience; there is a tremendous amount of jostling and confusion and a
momentary feeling of darkness. I let my spirit float supine over that
chaos.</p>
<p>A phrase of Edward Garnett's is, as a matter of fact, responsible for this
book. The first of the friends I made for myself by my pen it was but
natural that he should be the recipient, at that time, of my confidences.
One evening when we had dined together and he had listened to the account
of my perplexities (I fear he must have been growing a little tired of
them) he pointed out that there was no need to determine my future
absolutely. Then he added: "You have the style, you have the temperament;
why not write another?" I believe that as far as one man may wish to
influence another man's life Edward Garnett had a great desire that I
should go on writing. At that time, and I may say, ever afterwards, he was
always very patient and gentle with me. What strikes me most however in
the phrase quoted above which was offered to me in a tone of detachment is
not its gentleness but its effective wisdom. Had he said, "Why not go on
writing," it is very probable he would have scared me away from pen and
ink for ever; but there was nothing either to frighten one or arouse one's
antagonism in the mere suggestion to "write another." And thus a dead
point in the revolution of my affairs was insidiously got over. The word
"another" did it. At about eleven o'clock of a nice London night, Edward
and I walked along interminable streets talking of many things, and I
remember that on getting home I sat down and wrote about half a page of
"An Outcast of the Islands" before I slept. This was committing myself
definitely, I won't say to another life, but to another book. There is
apparently something in my character which will not allow me to abandon
for good any piece of work I have begun. I have laid aside many
beginnings. I have laid them aside with sorrow, with disgust, with rage,
with melancholy and even with self-contempt; but even at the worst I had
an uneasy consciousness that I would have to go back to them.</p>
<p>"An Outcast of the Islands" belongs to those novels of mine that were
never laid aside; and though it brought me the qualification of "exotic
writer" I don't think the charge was at all justified.</p>
<p>For the life of me I don't see that there is the slightest exotic spirit
in the conception or style of that novel. It is certainly the most <i>tropical</i>
of my eastern tales. The mere scenery got a great hold on me as I went on,
perhaps because (I may just as well confess that) the story itself was
never very near my heart.</p>
<p>It engaged my imagination much more than my affection. As to my feeling
for Willems it was but the regard one cannot help having for one's own
creation. Obviously I could not be indifferent to a man on whose head I
had brought so much evil simply by imagining him such as he appears in the
novel—and that, too, on a very slight foundation.</p>
<p>The man who suggested Willems to me was not particularly interesting in
himself. My interest was aroused by his dependent position, his strange,
dubious status of a mistrusted, disliked, worn-out European living on the
reluctant toleration of that Settlement hidden in the heart of the
forest-land, up that sombre stream which our ship was the only white men's
ship to visit. With his hollow, clean-shaved cheeks, a heavy grey
moustache and eyes without any expression whatever, clad always in a
spotless sleeping suit much be-frogged in front, which left his lean neck
wholly uncovered, and with his bare feet in a pair of straw slippers, he
wandered silently amongst the houses in daylight, almost as dumb as an
animal and apparently much more homeless. I don't know what he did with
himself at night. He must have had a place, a hut, a palm-leaf shed, some
sort of hovel where he kept his razor and his change of sleeping suits. An
air of futile mystery hung over him, something not exactly dark but
obviously ugly. The only definite statement I could extract from anybody
was that it was he who had "brought the Arabs into the river." That must
have happened many years before. But how did he bring them into the river?
He could hardly have done it in his arms like a lot of kittens. I knew
that Almayer founded the chronology of all his misfortunes on the date of
that fateful advent; and yet the very first time we dined with Almayer
there was Willems sitting at table with us in the manner of the skeleton
at the feast, obviously shunned by everybody, never addressed by any one,
and for all recognition of his existence getting now and then from Almayer
a venomous glance which I observed with great surprise. In the course of
the whole evening he ventured one single remark which I didn't catch
because his articulation was imperfect, as of a man who had forgotten how
to speak. I was the only person who seemed aware of the sound. Willems
subsided. Presently he retired, pointedly unnoticed—into the forest
maybe? Its immensity was there, within three hundred yards of the
verandah, ready to swallow up anything. Almayer conversing with my captain
did not stop talking while he glared angrily at the retreating back.
Didn't that fellow bring the Arabs into the river! Nevertheless Willems
turned up next morning on Almayer's verandah. From the bridge of the
steamer I could see plainly these two, breakfasting together, tete a tete
and, I suppose, in dead silence, one with his air of being no longer
interested in this world and the other raising his eyes now and then with
intense dislike.</p>
<p>It was clear that in those days Willems lived on Almayer's charity. Yet on
returning two months later to Sambir I heard that he had gone on an
expedition up the river in charge of a steam-launch belonging to the
Arabs, to make some discovery or other. On account of the strange
reluctance that everyone manifested to talk about Willems it was
impossible for me to get at the rights of that transaction. Moreover, I
was a newcomer, the youngest of the company, and, I suspect, not judged
quite fit as yet for a full confidence. I was not much concerned about
that exclusion. The faint suggestion of plots and mysteries pertaining to
all matters touching Almayer's affairs amused me vastly. Almayer was
obviously very much affected. I believe he missed Willems immensely. He
wore an air of sinister preoccupation and talked confidentially with my
captain. I could catch only snatches of mumbled sentences. Then one
morning as I came along the deck to take my place at the breakfast table
Almayer checked himself in his low-toned discourse. My captain's face was
perfectly impenetrable. There was a moment of profound silence and then as
if unable to contain himself Almayer burst out in a loud vicious tone:</p>
<p>"One thing's certain; if he finds anything worth having up there they will
poison him like a dog."</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>J. C. 1919. <br/> <br/></p>
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<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"></SPAN> <br/> <br/></p>
<h1> AN OUTCAST OF THE ISLANDS </h1>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_PART1" id="link2H_PART1"></SPAN></p>
<h2> PART I </h2>
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<h2> CHAPTER ONE </h2>
<p>When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar honesty,
it was with an inward assertion 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 perpetual
assurance 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 shabby multitude; 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 is a fine
thing to be a providence, and to be told so on every day of one's life. It
gives one a feeling of enormously remote superiority, and Willems revelled
in it. He did not analyze the state of his mind, but probably his greatest
delight lay in the unexpressed but intimate conviction that, should he
close his hand, all those admiring human beings would starve. His
munificence had demoralized them. An easy task. Since he descended amongst
them and married Joanna they had lost the little aptitude and strength for
work they might have had to put forth under the stress of extreme
necessity. They lived now by the grace of his will. This was power.
Willems loved it. In another, and perhaps a lower plane, his days did not
want for their less complex but more obvious pleasures. He liked the
simple games of skill—billiards; also games not so simple, and
calling for quite another kind of skill—poker. He had been the
aptest pupil of a steady-eyed, sententious American, who had drifted
mysteriously into Macassar from the wastes of the Pacific, and, after
knocking about for a time in the eddies of town life, had drifted out
enigmatically into the sunny solitudes of the Indian Ocean. The memory of
the Californian stranger was perpetuated in the game of poker—which
became popular in the capital of Celebes from that time—and in a
powerful cocktail, the recipe for which is transmitted—in the
Kwang-tung dialect—from head boy to head boy of the Chinese servants
in the Sunda Hotel even to this day. Willems was a connoisseur in the
drink and an adept at the game. Of those accomplishments he was moderately
proud. Of the confidence reposed in him by Hudig—the master—he
was boastfully and obtrusively proud. This arose from his great
benevolence, and from an exalted sense of his duty to himself and the
world at large. He experienced that irresistible impulse to impart
information which is inseparable from gross ignorance. There is always
some one thing which the ignorant man knows, and that thing is the only
thing worth knowing; it fills the ignorant man's universe. Willems knew
all about himself. On the day when, with many misgivings, he ran away from
a Dutch East-Indiaman in Samarang roads, he had commenced that study of
himself, of his own ways, of his own abilities, of those fate-compelling
qualities of his which led him toward that lucrative position which he now
filled. Being of a modest and diffident nature, his successes amazed,
almost frightened him, and ended—as he got over the succeeding
shocks of surprise—by making him ferociously conceited. He believed
in his genius and in his knowledge of the world. Others should know of it
also; for their own good and for his greater glory. All those friendly men
who slapped him on the back and greeted him noisily should have the
benefit of his example. For that he must talk. He talked to them
conscientiously. In the afternoon he expounded his theory of success over
the little tables, dipping now and then his moustache in the crushed ice
of the cocktails; in the evening he would often hold forth, cue in hand,
to a young listener across the billiard table. The billiard balls stood
still as if listening also, under the vivid brilliance of the shaded oil
lamps hung low over the cloth; while away in the shadows of the big room
the Chinaman marker would lean wearily against the wall, the blank mask of
his face looking pale under the mahogany marking-board; his eyelids
dropped in the drowsy fatigue of late hours and in the buzzing monotony of
the unintelligible stream of words poured out by the white man. In a
sudden pause of the talk the game would recommence with a sharp click and
go on for a time in the flowing soft whirr and the subdued thuds as the
balls rolled zig-zagging towards the inevitably successful cannon. Through
the big windows and the open doors the salt dampness of the sea, the vague
smell of mould and flowers from the garden of the hotel drifted in and
mingled with the odour of lamp oil, growing heavier as the night advanced.
The players' heads dived into the light as they bent down for the stroke,
springing back again smartly into the greenish gloom of broad lamp-shades;
the clock ticked methodically; the unmoved Chinaman continuously repeated
the score in a lifeless voice, like a big talking doll—and Willems
would win the game. With a remark that it was getting late, and that he
was a married man, he would say a patronizing good-night and step out into
the long, empty street. At that hour its white dust was like a dazzling
streak of moonlight where the eye sought repose in the dimmer gleam of
rare oil lamps. Willems walked homewards, following the line of walls
overtopped by the luxuriant vegetation of the front gardens. The houses
right and left were hidden behind the black masses of flowering shrubs.
Willems had the street to himself. He would walk in the middle, his shadow
gliding obsequiously before him. He looked down on it complacently. The
shadow of a successful man! He would be slightly dizzy with the cocktails
and with the intoxication of his own glory. As he often told people, he
came east fourteen years ago—a cabin boy. A small boy. His shadow
must have been very small at that time; he thought with a smile that he
was not aware then he had anything—even a shadow—which he
dared call his own. And now he was looking at the shadow of the
confidential clerk of Hudig & Co. going home. How glorious! How good
was life for those that were on the winning side! He had won the game of
life; also the game of billiards. He walked faster, jingling his winnings,
and thinking of the white stone days that had marked the path of his
existence. He thought of the trip to Lombok for ponies—that first
important transaction confided to him by Hudig; then he reviewed the more
important affairs: the quiet deal in opium; the illegal traffic in
gunpowder; the great affair of smuggled firearms, the difficult business
of the Rajah of Goak. He carried that last through by sheer pluck; he had
bearded the savage old ruler in his council room; he had bribed him with a
gilt glass coach, which, rumour said, was used as a hen-coop now; he had
over-persuaded him; he had bested him in every way. That was the way to
get on. He disapproved of the elementary dishonesty that dips the hand in
the cash-box, but one could evade the laws and push the principles of
trade to their furthest consequences. Some call that cheating. Those are
the fools, the weak, the contemptible. The wise, the strong, the
respected, have no scruples. Where there are scruples there can be no
power. On that text he preached often to the young men. It was his
doctrine, and he, himself, was a shining example of its truth.</p>
<p>Night after night he went home thus, after a day of toil and pleasure,
drunk with the sound of his own voice celebrating his own prosperity. On
his thirtieth birthday he went home thus. He had spent in good company a
nice, noisy evening, and, as he walked along the empty street, the feeling
of his own greatness grew upon him, lifted him above the white dust of the
road, and filled him with exultation and regrets. He had not done himself
justice over there in the hotel, he had not talked enough about himself,
he had not impressed his hearers enough. Never mind. Some other time. Now
he would go home and make his wife get up and listen to him. Why should
she not get up?—and mix a cocktail for him—and listen
patiently. Just so. She shall. If he wanted he could make all the Da Souza
family get up. He had only to say a word and they would all come and sit
silently in their night vestments on the hard, cold ground of his compound
and listen, as long as he wished to go on explaining to them from the top
of the stairs, how great and good he was. They would. However, his wife
would do—for to-night.</p>
<p>His wife! He winced inwardly. A dismal woman with startled eyes and
dolorously drooping mouth, that would listen to him in pained wonder and
mute stillness. She was used to those night-discourses now. She had
rebelled once—at the beginning. Only once. Now, while he sprawled in
the long chair and drank and talked, she would stand at the further end of
the table, her hands resting on the edge, her frightened eyes watching his
lips, without a sound, without a stir, hardly breathing, till he dismissed
her with a contemptuous: "Go to bed, dummy." She would draw a long breath
then and trail out of the room, relieved but unmoved. Nothing could
startle her, make her scold or make her cry. She did not complain, she did
not rebel. That first difference of theirs was decisive. Too decisive,
thought Willems, discontentedly. It had frightened the soul out of her
body apparently. A dismal woman! A damn'd business altogether! What the
devil did he want to go and saddle himself. . . . Ah! Well! he wanted a
home, and the match seemed to please Hudig, and Hudig gave him the
bungalow, that flower-bowered house to which he was wending his way in the
cool moonlight. And he had the worship of the Da Souza tribe. A man of his
stamp could carry off anything, do anything, aspire to anything. In
another five years those white people who attended the Sunday card-parties
of the Governor would accept him—half-caste wife and all! Hooray! He
saw his shadow dart forward and wave a hat, as big as a rum barrel, at the
end of an arm several yards long. . . . Who shouted hooray? . . . He
smiled shamefacedly to himself, and, pushing his hands deep into his
pockets, walked faster with a suddenly grave face. Behind him—to the
left—a cigar end glowed in the gateway of Mr. Vinck's front yard.
Leaning against one of the brick pillars, Mr. Vinck, the cashier of Hudig
& Co., smoked the last cheroot of the evening. Amongst the shadows of
the trimmed bushes Mrs. Vinck crunched slowly, with measured steps, the
gravel of the circular path before the house.</p>
<p>"There's Willems going home on foot—and drunk I fancy," said Mr.
Vinck over his shoulder. "I saw him jump and wave his hat."</p>
<p>The crunching of the gravel stopped.</p>
<p>"Horrid man," said Mrs. Vinck, calmly. "I have heard he beats his wife."</p>
<p>"Oh no, my dear, no," muttered absently Mr. Vinck, with a vague gesture.
The aspect of Willems as a wife-beater presented to him no interest. How
women do misjudge! If Willems wanted to torture his wife he would have
recourse to less primitive methods. Mr. Vinck knew Willems well, and
believed him to be very able, very smart—objectionably so. As he
took the last quick draws at the stump of his cheroot, Mr. Vinck reflected
that the confidence accorded by Hudig to Willems was open, under the
circumstances, to loyal criticism from Hudig's cashier.</p>
<p>"He is becoming dangerous; he knows too much. He will have to be got rid
of," said Mr. Vinck aloud. But Mrs. Vinck had gone in already, and after
shaking his head he threw away his cheroot and followed her slowly.</p>
<p>Willems walked on homeward weaving the splendid web of his future. The
road to greatness lay plainly before his eyes, straight and shining,
without any obstacle that he could see. He had stepped off the path of
honesty, as he understood it, but he would soon regain it, never to leave
it any more! It was a very small matter. He would soon put it right again.
Meantime his duty was not to be found out, and he trusted in his skill, in
his luck, in his well-established reputation that would disarm suspicion
if anybody dared to suspect. But nobody would dare! True, he was conscious
of a slight deterioration. He had appropriated temporarily some of Hudig's
money. A deplorable necessity. But he judged himself with the indulgence
that should be extended to the weaknesses of genius. He would make
reparation and all would be as before; nobody would be the loser for it,
and he would go on unchecked toward the brilliant goal of his ambition.</p>
<p>Hudig's partner!</p>
<p>Before going up the steps of his house he stood for awhile, his feet well
apart, chin in hand, contemplating mentally Hudig's future partner. A
glorious occupation. He saw him quite safe; solid as the hills; deep—deep
as an abyss; discreet as the grave.</p>
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