Youth, a Narrative by Joseph Conrad
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page 2 of 41 (04%)
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director had been a _Conway_ boy, the accountant had served four years at
sea, the lawyer--a fine crusted Tory, High Churchman, the best of old fellows, the soul of honour--had been chief officer in the P. & O. service in the good old days when mail-boats were square-rigged at least on two masts, and used to come down the China Sea before a fair monsoon with stun'-sails set alow and aloft. We all began life in the merchant service. Between the five of us there was the strong bond of the sea, and also the fellowship of the craft, which no amount of enthusiasm for yachting, cruising, and so on can give, since one is only the amusement of life and the other is life itself. Marlow (at least I think that is how he spelt his name) told the story, or rather the chronicle, of a voyage: "Yes, I have seen a little of the Eastern seas; but what I remember best is my first voyage there. You fellows know there are those voyages that seem ordered for the illustration of life, that might stand for a symbol of existence. You fight, work, sweat, nearly kill yourself, sometimes do kill yourself, trying to accomplish something--and you can't. Not from any fault of yours. You simply can do nothing, neither great nor little--not a thing in the world--not even marry an old maid, or get a wretched 600-ton cargo of coal to its port of destination. "It was altogether a memorable affair. It was my first voyage to the East, and my first voyage as second mate; it was also my skipper's first command. You'll admit it was time. He was sixty if a day; a little man, with a broad, not very straight back, with bowed shoulders and one leg more bandy than the other, he had that queer twisted-about appearance you see so often in men who work in the fields. He had a nut-cracker face--chin and nose trying to come together over a sunken mouth--and it |
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