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LORD JIM Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT ®, SAT ®, GRE ®, LSAT ®, GMAT ®, and AP ® English Test Preparation Joseph Conrad PSAT  is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation neither of which spons ors or endorses this book; SAT is a registered trademark of the College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE , AP  and Advanced Placement are registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service wh ich neither sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT  is a registered trademark of the Graduate Management Admi ssions Council which is neither affiliated with this boo k nor endorses this book, LSAT  is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council which neithe r sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved.

PSAT ® is a registered trademark of the College Entrance Examination Board and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation neither of whic h sponsors or endorses this book; SAT ® is a registered trademark of the College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE ®, AP ® and Advanced Placement ® are registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT ® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Mana gement Admissions Council which is neither affiliated with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT ® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved. Lord Jim Webster’s Thesaurus Edition for PSAT ®, SAT ®, GRE ®, LSAT ®, GMAT ®, and AP ® English Test Preparation Joseph Conrad

IC ON C LASSICS Publish ed by I CON Group In ternation al, Inc. 7404 T rade St reet San Diego, CA 92121 U SA www.icongroup online.com Lord Jim: Webs ter’s Thesaurus Ed ition for PSAT®, SA T®, GRE ®, LSAT®, G MAT ®, and AP ® En glish Tes t Preparat ion This ed ition pu blis hed by IC ON Clas sics in 2005 Prin ted in the Unit ed St ates of America. Co pyr ight ©2005 by IC ON Grou p In ternation al, Inc. Edit ed by Philip M. P arker, Ph.D. (INSEA D); Copyrigh t ©2005, all ri ghts res erved. All righ ts reserved. Th is book is prot ected by copyri ght. No part of it may be r epro duced, st ored in a retrieval syst em, or t ransm itted in an y form or by an y m eans, elect ronic, mechanical, ph otocopying, recordin g, or ot herwise, with out wri tten perm ission from th e publ ish er. Copyin g our publicat ion s in whole or in part , fo r wh atever reas on, is a violat ion of copyright laws and can lead t o penalties and fi nes. S hould yo u wa nt to copy tables , graphs, or ot her materials , pleas e con tact us to requ est perm ission (E-m ail: icon edit@san.rr.com ). ICON Group of ten gran ts per mission for very lim ited reproduct ion of our publicat ions for in ternal us e, press releases, an d academ ic res earch . Such reprod uct ion req uires con firmed pe rm ission f rom ICON Group In ternation al, Inc. PSAT ® is a regist ered t radem ark of t he College En trance Exam ination Board an d th e Nat ional Mer it Scho larship Co rporation ne ither of whi ch spons ors or en dors es this book; SAT ® is a regist ered tradem ark of t he College Board wh ich neither spon sors n or en dors es t his book; GRE ®, AP ® and Advanced Place ment ® are regist ered t radem arks of t he Edu cat ional Test ing Service wh ich neith er spons ors nor end orses th is book, GMA T® is a regist ered t rade mark of t he Graduat e Man agem ent Admission s Coun cil w hich is neither affiliat ed with this book n or en dorses th is book, LSA T® is a regist ered t rade mark of th e La w Sch ool Adm issio ns Coun cil which neith er spo nsors n or endor ses this produc t. All righ ts reserved. ISB N 0- 497- 2528 9-9

iii Contents PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR .......................................................................................... 1 AUTHOR'S NOTE .............................................................................................................. 3 CHAPTER 1 ......................................................................................................................7 CHAPTER 2 .................................................................................................................... 13 CHAPTER 3 .................................................................................................................... 19 CHAPTER 4 .................................................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER 5 .................................................................................................................... 33 CHAPTER 6 .................................................................................................................... 51 CHAPTER 7 .................................................................................................................... 67 CHAPTER 8 .................................................................................................................... 77 CHAPTER 9 .................................................................................................................... 87 CHAPTER 10................................................................................................................... 97 CHAPTER 11................................................................................................................. 109 CHAPTER 12................................................................................................................. 113 CHAPTER 13................................................................................................................. 121 CHAPTER 14................................................................................................................. 131 CHAPTER 15................................................................................................................. 141 CHAPTER 16................................................................................................................. 145 CHAPTER 17................................................................................................................. 151 CHAPTER 18................................................................................................................. 155 CHAPTER 19................................................................................................................. 163 CHAPTER 20................................................................................................................. 169 CHAPTER 21................................................................................................................. 181 CHAPTER 22................................................................................................................. 187 CHAPTER 23................................................................................................................. 193 CHAPTER 24................................................................................................................. 201 CHAPTER 25................................................................................................................. 207 CHAPTER 26................................................................................................................. 215 CHAPTER 27................................................................................................................. 221 CHAPTER 28................................................................................................................. 227 CHAPTER 29................................................................................................................. 235 CHAPTER 30................................................................................................................. 241

iv CHAP TER 3 1................................................................................................................. 247 CHAP TER 3 2................................................................................................................. 255 CHAP TER 3 3................................................................................................................. 261 CHAP TER 3 4................................................................................................................. 269 CHAP TER 3 5................................................................................................................. 277 CHAP TER 3 6................................................................................................................. 283 CHAP TER 3 7................................................................................................................. 289 CHAP TER 3 8................................................................................................................. 297 CHAP TER 3 9................................................................................................................. 305 CHAP TER 4 0................................................................................................................. 313 CHAP TER 4 1................................................................................................................. 321 CHAP TER 4 2................................................................................................................. 327 CHAP TER 4 3................................................................................................................. 335 CHAP TER 4 4................................................................................................................. 341 CHAP TER 4 5................................................................................................................. 347 GLOSSARY ................................................................................................................... 357

Joseph Conrad 1 PREFACE FROM THE EDITOR Designed for school districts, educators, and students seeking to maximize performance on standardized tests, Webster’s paperbacks take advantage of the fact that classics are frequently assigned readings in English courses. By using a running thesaurus at the bottom of each page, this edition of Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad was edited for students who are actively building their vocabularies in anticipation of taking PSAT ®, SAT ®, AP ® (Advanced Placement ®), GRE ®, LSAT ®, GMAT ® or similar examinations. 1 Webster’s edition of this classic is organized to expose the reader to a maximum number of synonyms and antonyms for difficult and often am biguous English words that are encountered in other works of literature, conversation, or academic examinations. Extremely rare or idiosyncratic words and expressions are given lower priority in the notes compared to words which are “difficult, and often encountered” in examinations. Rather than supply a single synonym, many are provided for a variety of meanings, allowing readers to be tter grasp the ambiguity of the English language, and avoid using the notes as a pure crutch. Having the reader decipher a word’s meaning within context serves to improve voca bulary retention and understanding. Each page covers words not already highlighted on previous pages. If a difficult word is not noted on a page, chances are that it has been highlighted on a previous page. A more complete thesaurus is supplied at the end of the book; Synonyms and antonyms are extracte d from Webster’s Online Dictionary. Definitions of remaining terms as well as translations can be found at www.websters-online- dictionary.org . Please send suggestions to websters@icongroupbooks.com The Editor Webster’s Online Dictionary www.websters-online-dictionary.org 1 PSAT ® is a registered trademark of the College En trance Examination Board and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation neither of whic h sponsors or endorses this book; SAT ® is a registered trademark of the College Board which neither sponsors nor endorses this book; GRE ®, AP ® and Advanced Placement ® are registered trademarks of the Educational Testing Service which neither sponsors nor endorses this book, GMAT ® is a registered trademark of the Graduate Mana gement Admissions Council which is neither affiliated with this book nor endorses this book, LSAT ® is a registered trademark of the Law School Admissions Council which neither sponsors nor endorses this product. All rights reserved.



Joseph Conrad 3 AUTHOR'S NOTE When this novel first appeared in book form a notion got about that I had been bolted away with. Some reviewers maintained that the work starting as a short story had got beyond the writer's control. One or two discovered internal evidence of the fact, which seemed to amuse them. They pointed out the limitations of the narrative form. They argued that no man could have been expected to talk all that time, and other men to listen so long. It was not, they said, very credible. % After thinking it over for something like sixteen years, I am not so sure about that. Men have been known, both in the tropics and in the temperate zone, to sit up half the night 'swapping yarns'. This, however, is but one yarn, yet with interruptions affording some measure of relief; and in regard to the listeners' endurance , the postulate must be accepted that the stor y was interesting. It is the necessary preliminary assumption. If I hadn't believed that it was interesting I could never have begun to write it. As to the mere physical possibility we all know that some speeches in Parliament ha ve taken nearer six than three hours in delivery; whereas all that part of the book which is Marlow's narrative can be read through aloud, I should say, in less than three hours. Besides--though I have kept strictly all such insignificant details out of the tale--we may presume that there must have been refreshments on th at night, a glass of mineral water of some sort to help the narrator on. But, seriously, the truth of the matter is , that my first thought was of a short Thesaurus amuse: (v) please, beguile, absorb, entertain, enjoy, disport, distract, delight, occupy, recreate, rejoice. ANTONYMS: ( v) bore, dull, tire, annoy, anger, cloy, depress, weary, disappoint. bolted : (adj ) barred, Bolten, secured, firm, barricaded, blockaded, bolted attachment, fast, fastened, latched, tight. endurance : (adj, n ) sufferance; ( n) stamina, tolerance, courage, permanence, continuance, energy, fortitude, tenacity, duration, toughness. ANTONYMS: ( n) weakness, inconsistency, impatience, frailty, discontinuation, discontinuance, death. insignificant: (adj) inconsequential, inconsiderable, humble, poor, immaterial, trivial, unimportant, light, infinitesimal, indifferent, small. ANTONYMS: ( adj) significant, enormous, major, important, huge, substantial, considerable, great, colossal, valuable, influential. listeners : (n) listener, viewers, spectators, addressees. narrator : (n) teller, speaker, fabulist, anecdotist, narrators, talker, lecturer, narrater, orator, relator, raconteur. postulate : (n) axiom, hypothesis, condition, supposition; ( v) demand, requisition, assume , presume, ask; (n, v) posit, premise. tropics: ( n) climatic zone, Torrid Zone.

Lord J im 4 story, concerned only wit h the pilgrim ship episode ; not hing more. And t hat was a legitimate concepti on. After wri ting a few pa ges, however, I beca me f or some reason disco ntented and I l aid them a side f or a time. I di dn't ta ke t hem out of the drawer t ill t he lat e Mr. W illiam Bl ackw ood sugg est ed I should gi ve somet hing ag ain t o his magazine. % It was only t hen that I pe rceived th at the pilg rim sh ip episo de w as a goo d start ing -point for a free and wand erin g tale; tha t it wa s an event, too, whi ch could conc eivab ly colour the whole 'sentiment of existence ' in a simple an d sensit ive ch aract er. But al l these prel imi nary moods and st irr ings of sp irit were rather obscure a t the ti me, a nd they do not a ppea r cl earer to me now a fter the laps e of so m any years. The few p age s I h ad laid aside were not wit hout their weight in t he choice of subject. B ut the whole was re -written d eliber ately. When I sat down to it I kn ew it would be a long book, t hough I didn 't foresee t hat it would sp read it self ov er thirteen num bers of M aga. I have been asked at times whether this was not the book of mine I liked best. I am a gre at foe t o favo uritism in pu blic l ife, in p rivat e l ife, a nd even in t he del icate rela tionshi p of an author to his works. As a m atter of pri nciple I wi ll have no favo urites; but I don't go so far as to feel griev ed and annoyed by the preference so me people give to my Lo rd Jim. I wo n't even say that I 'fail to underst and . . .' No! B ut on ce I had occ asion to be pu zzle d and s urprised . A friend o f mine return ing from Italy had t alked with a lady t here who d id not l ike the book. I regretted tha t, of course, but wha t surprised me wa s the ground of h er dislike. 'You kn ow,' she sa id, 'it is a ll so morbi d.' The prono uncem en t gave m e food for an hour's an xious though t. Fin ally I arr ived at the conclus ion t hat, mak ing due a llo wanc es for t he s ubject itself be ing rat her fore ign t o women's normal sen sibilit ies, t he l ady could not have been a n Italian. I wo nder whether she w as Euro pean at al l? In any case , no Lat in temperament would have perceived an ything morbid in the acute conscio usne ss of lost hono ur. Such a con sciousness m ay be wron g, or it may be right, or it may be condem ned a s art ific ial; and , p erhap s, m y Jim is not a type of wi de Thesaurus conce ivably : (adv) perhaps, maybe, perchance, b eliev ably, probably, by chance, credi bly, reas onably. ANTONY MS: ( adv ) definitely, implausibl y, unim aginabl y. disconte nted: (adj, v ) quer ulo us, complainin g; (adj) disaffe cted, disgruntled, mal content, unsatisfied, dissatisfied, disple ased, miserable, put out, ungratif ied. ANTONY MS: (adj) pleased , satisfi ed, hap py, content. don' t: (adv ) not; ( n) tabo o, prohibitio n. fav ouriti sm: (n) ne potism , agei sm, fattism, discrimina tion, a gism, favo ur, parti ality, dispositi on, ablism, fatism , ablei sm. grieved : (adj) sore, sad, sorry, sorrowful, up set, woeful, pained , affected, bro kenhe arted. morbid : (adj) diseased, gruesom e, macabre, corr upt, pa tholo gic, unw holesome, pecc ant, sick, unhe althy, pa thol ogical; (adj, v) sickly. pilgrim : (n) hadji, passenger, journeyer, palmer, t raveler, wanderer, co nvent ual, mon k, mendica nt, la y brot her, ha jji. pronounce ment: (n) proclam ation, affirm ation, dictum , decree, assertion, ruling, judgment, sentence, anno uncement, dir ective, verdict. tale: (n) account, narra tive, na rration, recital, fib, f able, re port, fiction, lie, rela tion, y arn. ANTONYM: ( n) fact.

Joseph Conrad 5 commonness. But I can safely assure my readers that he is not the product of coldly perverted thinking. He's not a figure of Northern Mists either. One sunny morning, in the commonplace surroundings of an Eastern roadstead, I saw his form pass by--appealing--significant--under a cloud--perfectly silent. Which is as it should be. It was for me, with all the sympathy of which I was capable, to seek fit words for his meaning. He was 'one of us'. % J.C. June, 1917. Thesaurus assure : (n, v ) certify, warrant, vouch; (v) secure, persuade, satisfy, reassure, affirm, promise, ascertain; ( adj, v) ensure. ANTONYMS: ( v) alarm, disclaim, deny, disbelieve, undermine. coldly : (adv ) frigidly, icily, coolly, indifferently, frostily, distantly, gelidly, reservedly, bleakly, wintrily, frozenly. ANTONYMS: ( adv) warml y, affectionately, sympathetically, sensitively, kindly, cheerfully, emotionally. commonness : (n) frequency, grossness, vulgarism, vulgarity, commonplaceness, commonality, community, normalcy, inelegance, normality, generality. ANTONYMS: (n) uncommonness, fame, tastefulness, uniqueness. commonplace : (adj, v ) trite, hackneyed; ( adj) banal, ordinary, humdrum, common, average, plain, mundane, dull; ( n) platitude. ANTONYMS: (adj) extraordinary, unusual, exceptional, infrequent, rare, romantic, uncommon, weird; ( n) deepness, profundity, profoundness. perverted: (adj ) perverse, immoral, distorted, kinky, corrupt, twisted, abnormal, debauched, deviant, reprobate, unnatural. ANTONYMS: (adj ) normal, moral, unchanged. roadstead : (n) roads, road, harbor, haven, port, anchorage ground, inroad, invasion, raid.



Joseph Conrad 7 CHAPTER 1 He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of dogged self-assertion which had nothing aggressive in it. It seemed a necessity, and it was directed apparently as much at himself as at anybody else. He was spotlessly neat, apparelled in immaculate white from shoes to hat, an d in the various Eastern ports where he got his living as ship-chandler's water-clerk he was very popular. % A water-clerk need not pass an examin ation in anything under the sun, but he must have Ability in the abstract and demonstrate it practically. His work consists in racing under sail, steam, or oars against other water-clerks for any ship about to anchor, greeting her captain cheerily, forcing upon him a card--the business card of the ship-chandler- -and on his first visit on shore piloting him firmly but without ostentation to a vast, cavern-like shop which is full of things that are eaten and drunk on board ship; where you can get everything to make her seaworthy and beautiful, from a set of chain-hooks for her cable to a book of gold-leaf for the carvings of her stern; and where her commander is received like a brother by a ship-chandler he has never seen before. There is a cool parlour, easy-chairs, bottles, cigars, writing implements , a copy of harbour regulations, and a warmth of welcome that melts the salt of a three months' passage out of a seaman's heart. The connection thus begun is kept up, as long as the ship Thesaurus cheerily : (adv ) merrily, pleasantly, cheerfully, joyfully, gaily, brightly, happily, mirthfully, jovially, sunnily, blithely. ANTONYMS: ( adv) nastily, sulkily, seriously, miserably, sadly. cigars : (n) cigar. dogged : (adj ) obdurate, stubborn, willful, bullheaded, insistent, obstinate, tenacious, wilful, untiring, resolute, persistent. ANTONYMS: (adj ) yielding, compromising, indifferent, undetermined. eaten : (v) eat. implements : (n) equipment, apparatus, gear, tackle, rigging, outfit, hardware, trappings. ostentation: ( n) affectation, bravado, parade, showiness, flourish, vanity, pomp, splendor, bluster, state, show. ANTONYM: ( n) unpretentiousness. piloting: (n) navi gation, pilot workin g, astronavigation, direction, guidance, steering, aviation, celestial navigation, dead reckoning, instrument flying. seaworthy: ( adj) oceangoing, sea, seagoing; ( v) snug. spotlessly : (adv ) faultlessly, blamelessly, unblemishedly, stainlessly, purely, flawlessly, perfectly, innocently, unsulliedly, clearly, undefiledly. stoop : (v) crouch, bend, deign, condescend, descend, squat, couch, cringe, lean, lower oneself; ( n) porch. ANTONYM: (v) straighten.

Lord J im 8 rema ins i n ha rbour, by the da ily vi sits of the wa ter- clerk. To the ca pta in he is faithfu l like a f riend and at tentive l ike a son, wi th the pa tience of Job, the unselfish devotion of a woman, and the jollity of a boon companion . Later on the bill i s sen t in. It is a beaut iful and h umane occ upat ion. There fore good wat er- clerk s are sc arce. When a water-c lerk wh o possesse s Ability in the abstract has also the advantage o f having been brought up to the sea, he is worth to h is employer a lot of money and some humo uring. Jim ha d alwa ys good wag es and as m uch h umouring as wo uld hav e bought the f ide lity of a fien d. Neverthele ss, with black ingra titud e he would throw up the job sudden ly and depart. To his employers the re asons he g ave w ere obvio usly in ade quat e. They said 'Confounded fool!' as soon as his bac k wa s t urned . This was t heir c ritici sm on his exqu isite sen sibil ity.% To the white men in the waters ide business an d to the captain s of ships h e was j ust Jim --nothing more. He had, o f course, another name, but h e was anxio us that it should not be pron ounced. His incogn ito , wh ich had as m any holes as a sieve , wa s not mea nt to hide a persona lity but a fact. When t he fa ct broke through the i ncogni to he woul d lea ve suddenl y the seap ort where he happened to be a t the ti me a nd go t o another-- general ly farther ea st. He kept to sea ports becau se he was a se am an i n exile from the sea, and had Ab ility i n the ab stract , which is goo d for no other work but that of a water-clerk. He retre ated in goo d order t owa rd s t he r isin g sun, and t he fact fo llowe d him ca su ally but inevit abl y. Thus in t he c ourse of ye ars he w as kno wn succe ssively in Bomb ay, in Ca lcut ta, in Ran goon, in Penang , in B atavia--and in each of t hese h alting -places w as just Jim the wa ter- clerk. Af terwa rds, when hi s k een percep tion of the In tolerable dr ove him aw ay for good f rom seap ort s and whit e m en, e ven int o the virgin fore st, the Malays of the jungle village, where he had elected to conceal his deplor able fac ulty, ad de d a word to the monosyl lable of his incognit o. Th ey ca lle d hi m Tuan Jim : as one might sa y-- Lord Jim . Origin ally he came from a pars on ag e. Many comm anders of fin e merchant - ships come from these ab odes of p iety and peac e. Jim's father p ossessed suc h certain knowledge of the Unknowable as ma de for the righteousness of people in Thesaurus fien d: (n) mon ster, devil, fanati c, brute, deuc e, incub us, go blin, ogre, enthusiast, daemon , addict. ANTONY M: ( n) an gel. incognito : (adv ) inc og; (adj) covert, secr et, nam eless, disgui sed , undercover, con cealed; ( n) pseudonym. ingrat itude : (n) oblivion of bene fits, thankle ssne ss, ungr atef ulnes s, feeling. ANTO NY M: ( n) gratit ude. jollity : (adj, n) glee, joviality; ( n) merriment, cheerfulness, fe stivity, frolic, gla dness, hil arity, mirth, gaiety; ( adj) jocundi ty. ANTONY MS: (n) ser iousness, misery. monosyll able : (n) word, polysyll able, dissyll able. parsonage: (n) vicara ge, rectory, residence, habitati on, glebe ho use, glebe, dwelling h ouse, dwelling, domicile, deanery, church ho use. retreated : (adj) with drawn, people. seaport : (n) harbor, ha rbo ur, port, port of call, docks, oasis, coaling stati on. siev e: (v) filter, riddle, strain, sh ovel, mop, s eparate, b room; ( n, v ) sift; ( n) strainer, sifter, col ander. unse lfish: (adj) selfl ess, altr uistic, disinterested, liber al, magnanim ous, philanthropic, co nsiderate, beneficent, ch arit able, kind, helpful. ANTONY MS: ( adj) greedy, unch aritable, tho ughtless. watersid e: (n) emb ankment, riverbank, river side, shoreline.

Joseph Conrad 9 cottages without disturbing the ease of mind of those whom an unerring Providence enables to live in mansions. The little church on a hill had the mossy greyness of a rock seen through a ragged screen of leaves. It had stood there for centuries, but the trees around probably remembered the laying of the first stone. Below, the red front of the rectory gleamed with a warm tint in the midst of grass-plots, flower-beds, and fir-trees, with an orchard at the back, a paved stable-yard to the left, and the sloping glass of greenhouses tacked along a wall of bricks. The living had belonged to the family for generations; but Jim was one of five sons, and when after a course of light holiday literature his vocation for the sea had declared itself, he was sent at once to a 'training-ship for officers of the mercantile marine.' He learned there a little trigonometry and how to cross top-gallant yards. He was generally liked. He had the third place in navigation and pulled stroke in the first cutter. Having a steady head with an excellent physique, he was very smart aloft. His station was in the fore-top, and often from there he looked down, with the contempt of a man destined to shine in the midst of dangers, at the peaceful multitude of roofs cut in two by the brow n tide of the stream, while scattered on the outskirts of the surrounding plain the factory chimneys rose perpendicular against a grimy sky, each slender like a pencil, and belching out smoke like a volcano. He could see the big ships departing, the broad-beamed ferries constantly on the move, the little boats floating far below his feet, with the hazy splendour of the sea in the distance, and the hope of a stirring life in the world of adventure. % On the lower deck in the babel of two hundred voices he would forget himself, and beforehand live in his mind the sea-life of light literature. He saw himself saving people from sinking ships, cutting away masts in a hurricane, swimming through a surf with a line; or as a lonely castaway, barefooted and half naked, walking on uncovered reefs in search of shellfish to stave off starvation. He confronted savages on tropical shores, quelled mutinies on the high seas, and in a small boat upon the ocean kept up the hearts of despairing men--always an example of devotion to duty, and as unflinching as a hero in a Thesaurus babel: (n) pandemonium, racket, tumult, Babylon, uproar, din, noise; (adj ) Saturnalia, most admired disorder, donnybrook, confusion worse confounded. barefooted : (adj ) shoeless, unshod, discalced, bare footed. belching : (n) eructation, burp, burping. castaway : (adj, n ) outcast, pariah; ( adj) rejected, shipwrecked, pilgarlic; ( n) recreant, defaulter, abject, derelict, abandoned person, heretic. chimneys: (n) chimney. greyness: ( n) grey, grayness, gray, charcoal, achromatic color, achromatic colour, Asa gray, ash gray, charcoal gray, lightness, ash grey. mossy: (adj ) floral, mosslike, moldy, hoary, musty, covered, musciform, stodgy, hoar, chromatic, canescent. quelled : (adj ) quenched, allayed, extinguished, extinct. trigonometry : (n) goniometry, triangulation, pure mathematics, spherical trigonometry. unerring : (adj ) sure, certain, inerrant, inerrable, accurate, exact, faithful, perfect, unblemished, constant, right. ANTONYMS: ( adj) erring, imperfect, mistaken, inaccurate, faulty. unflinching : (adj ) resolute, steadfast, undaunted, firm, unfaltering, determined, dauntless, intrepid, undeviating, constant, unswerving.

Lord J im 10 book. % 'Something 's up. Come alo ng.' He leape d to his feet. The boys were streamin g up the ladd ers. Ab ove could be hea rd a grea t scurryi ng a bout and shouti ng, a nd when he got through the hatc hway he stood still--as if confo unded. It was the dusk of a winter's day. T he gale had freshened since noon , stoppi ng the tra ffic on the river, and now bl ew wi th the strength of a hurri cane in fitful bursts that boome d like salvoes of gr eat g uns fir ing over the ocean. The rain slanted in sheets that flic ked and subsided , and between whiles Jim h ad threa teni ng gl impses of the tumbl ing tide, the sma ll cra ft jumbl ed a nd tossi ng along the sh ore, t he mot ionless bu ild ings in t he dr iving m ist, the broad fe rry- boa ts pitching pond erous ly at anchor, the v ast lan ding -stag es h eav ing up an d down and smothered in spray s. The n ext gu st seem ed to blow all this aw ay . The air was full of flying w ater. There was a fierce purpose in the gale, a furio us ear nes tness in the screech of the wind, in the br utal t umult of ea rth and s ky, t hat seemed d irec ted at him, and made h im hold his bre ath in awe. He stood still. It seemed to h im he was wh irle d around . He was jostle d. 'M an the cutter!' Boys rushed past him. A coaster running in for shelter h ad crashed through a schoon er at an chor, and one of t he ship 's instructors h ad seen the accident. A mo b of boys cla mbered on the ra ils, cluster ed ro und the dav its. 'Col lision . Just ah ead of us. Mr. Sym ons saw i t.' A push m ade him st ag ger ag ain st the m izzen-m ast , an d he ca ught hold of a rop e. The old train ing-ship ch ained to her moor ings quivered a ll ove r, bowing gent ly hea d to wi nd, a nd wi th her sca nty riggi ng hum ming i n a deep ba ss the breathless so ng of her yo uth at sea. 'Lower aw ay! ' He saw t he boat, m anne d, drop swift ly below t he rail , and rushe d aft er her. He heard a sp lash. 'Let go; cle ar the falls!' He lean ed over. The river alongsid e seethed in frot hy str eaks . Th e cut ter could be seen in t he fa lling d arkn ess un der the spell o f tide and win d, th at for a moment held her bou nd, and t ossing abre ast of the ship. A y elling voice in her re ached him faintly: 'Keep stroke, you yo ung whelps, if yo u want to save anybody! Ke ep stroke!' A nd sud denly she lifted high her bow, and, leaping with Thesaurus coast er: (n) lighter, mover, occ upant, protection, res ident , ma t, beer ma t, whaler, sl aver, colli er, bottle rest. earnestness: (n) ser iousnes s, sinc erity, gravity, fervor, dev otion, graven ess, staid ness, hon esty; (adj, n ) ar dor, zeal, intentness. ANTO NYMS: ( n) slac kness, lightne ss, carelessne ss, frivolo usne ss, cheerfulne ss, insincerity, flipp ancy. fitful: (adj) errati c, fickle, chang eable, spasmodic, u ncertain, intermittent, irregular, v ariable, sporadic, des ultory, fli ckerin g. ANTONY MS: (adj) regu lar, u nbro ken. hatchwa y: (n) door way, scuttle, gang way, drive way, cellar way, gateway, door, fir st step, brood, escape ha tch, entry way. ponde rously : (adv) weightily, heavily, gravely, un wieldily , cumbro usly, slowly, dully, h ardly, oppressively, stuff ily, arduously. AN TON YM: (adv ) rashly. schooner : (n) lota , boa t, ch atti, mu ssuk, s pider, terrine, u rceus , toby, clipper, ya cht, s harpshooter. seethed : (v) satur ated, boiled. slant ed: (adj) slanting, diagon al, lopsided, tilted, slo ped, sloping, obli que, skewed, aslant, aske w, aslope. ANTON YMS: ( adj) str aight, balanced, imparti al, level, upright. streak s: (n) str ipes, cor ds. symons : (n) Arthu r Symons . whiles : (n) wh ile.

Joseph Conrad 11 raised oars over a wave, broke the spell cast upon her by the wind and tide. % Jim felt his shoulder gripped firmly. 'Too late, youngster.' The captain of the ship laid a restraining hand on that boy, who seemed on the point of leaping overboard, and Jim looked up with the pain of conscious defeat in his eyes. The captain smiled sympathetically. 'Better luck next time. This will teach you to be smart.' A shrill cheer greeted the cutter. She came dancing back half full of water, and with two exhausted men washing about on her bottom boards. The tumult and the menace of wind and sea now appeared very contemptible to Jim, increasing the regret of his awe at their inefficient menace. Now he knew what to think of it. It seemed to him he cared nothing for the gale. He could affront greater perils. He would do so--better than anybody. Not a particle of fear was left. Nevertheless he brooded apart that evening while the bowman of the cutter- -a boy with a face like a girl's and big gr ey eyes--was the hero of the lower deck. Eager questioners crowded round him. He narrated: 'I just saw his head bobbing, and I dashed my boat-hook in the water. It caught in his breeches and I nearly went overboard, as I thought I would, only old Symons let go the tiller and grabbed my legs--the boat nearly swampe d. Old Symons is a fine old chap. I don't mind a bit him being grumpy with us . He swore at me all the time he held my leg, but that was only his way of telling me to stick to the boat-hook. Old Symons is awfully excitable--isn't he? No--not the little fair chap--the other, the big one with a beard. When we pulled him in he groaned, "Oh, my leg! oh, my leg!" and turned up his eyes. Fancy such a big chap fainting like a girl. Would any of you fellows faint for a jab with a boat-hook?--I wouldn't. It went into his leg so far.' He showed the boat-hook, which he had carried below for the purpose, and produced a sensation. 'No, si lly! It was not his flesh that held him-- his breeches did. Lots of blood, of course.' Jim thought it a pitiful display of vanity. The gale had ministered to a heroism as spurious as its own pretence of terror. He felt angry with the brutal tumult of earth and sky for taking him unawares and checking unfairly a generous readiness for narrow escapes. Ot herwise he was rather glad he had not Thesaurus bowman: (n) rifleman, expert, marksman, tell. breeches : (n) knickers, inexpressibles, knickerbockers, brogues, short, smalls, overalls, small clothes, pants, trousers, pantaloons. contemptible : (adj ) abject, mean, base, pitiful, little, worthless, unworthy, miserable, ignoble, abominable, shameful. ANTONYMS: ( adj) estimable, admired, deserving, worthy, honorable, respectable, respectful, noble, generous, commendable, good. fainting : (n) swoon, syncope, deliquium, lipothymy, prostration, stupor; ( adj) lipothymic. heroism : (n) bravery, courage, valor, daring, boldness, chivalry, valiancy, valour, valiance, courageousness; (adj, n ) prowess. ANTONYMS: ( n) cowardliness, fearfulness. narrated: (adj ) oral, narrative. overboard : (adj ) exorbitant, rabid. tumult: ( adj, n, v) hubbub, disturbance; (n) stir, commotion, bustle, din, fuss, excitement; ( n, v) clamor, disorder, brawl. ANTONYMS: ( n) peace, push, serenity, order, calm. unawares: (adv ) suddenly, pop, plump, abruptly, a l'improviste, unaware, all at once, unexpectedly, inadvertently; ( adj) unwary, unsuspecting. ANTONYMS: ( adj) prepared; ( adv) knowingly, consciously.

Lord J im 12 gone i nto the cutter , sinc e a lowe r ac hievement had se rved the turn. He h ad enlarged his knowled ge m ore than those who h ad d one the work . When all men flin ched, then --he felt sure --he alone wo uld know ho w to deal wit h the spurio us menace of wind and seas. He knew wha t to thi nk of it. Seen disp assionately , it seemed conte mptible. He could detect no trace of emotion in himself, and th e fin al e ffect of a staggerin g event wa s tha t, unnoti ced a nd a part from the noi sy crowd of boys, he exulted with fresh cer titude in hi s avidit y for a dvent ure, and in a sen se o f ma ny -sided c ourage. % Thesaurus avidity : (adj, n) gre ed, greediness; ( n) eager ness, ardor, covetou snes s, lust, des ire, enthus iasm, rapacity, cup idity, avid ness. certitude : (n) assurance, trust, conviction, determi nation, pers uasion, fa ith, secu rity, firmne ss, assuredness, resolution, confid ence. ANTONY M: ( n) in decision. cutter : (n) carver, k nife, clipper, cutting tool, pinn ace, cu tting off table, foi st, yaw l, diner; ( adj) billho ok, cleaver. dispassion ately : (adv) imp assively, neutrall y, objectivel y, indifferently, fairly, ap athetic ally, disinterestedly, coolly, un emotion ally, coldly, composedly. AN TONYMS: ( adv) emotion ally, subjec tively. kne w: (adj) kn own; (v) recogni ze, wist. many-sid ed: (adj) various, ver satile, eclectic, fini shed, clever. spur ious : (adj, adv, v) co unterfeit; ( adj, adv, n ) fal se; (adj) phony, fake, illegitimate, b ogus, specio us, misbeg otten, bastardly; (adj, n ) bastard ; (adj, v) pse udo. ANTONY MS: ( adj) rea l, authentic, valid. stagg ering : (adj) ast ounding, amazing, incredible, inconc eivable, prodigio us, marvelo us, startlin g, ghastly, shockin g, remark able, extraordinary. ANTONY MS: ( adj) unrema rkable, norma l, lovely, c omforting.

Joseph Conrad 13 CHAPTER 2 After two years of training he went to sea, and entering the regions so well known to his imagination, found them st rangely barren of adventure. He made many voyages. He knew the magic mo notony of existence between sky and water: he had to bear the criticism of men, the exactions of the sea, and the prosaic severity of the daily task that gives bread--but whose only reward is in the perfect love of the work. This reward eluded him. Yet he could not go back, because there is nothing more enticing , disenchanting , and enslaving than the life at sea. Besides, his prospects were good. He was gentlemanly, steady, tractable , with a thorough knowledge of his duties; and in time, when yet very young, he became chief mate of a fine ship, without ever having been tested by those events of the sea that show in the light of day the inner worth of a man, the edge of his temper, and the fibre of his stuff; that reveal the quality of his resistance and the secret truth of his pret ences, not only to others but also to himself. % Only once in all that time he had again a glimpse of the earnestness in the anger of the sea. That truth is not so of ten made apparent as people might think. There are many shades in the danger of adventures and gales, and it is only now and then that there appears on the face of facts a sinister violence of intention-- that indefinable something which forces it upon the mind and the heart of a man, that this complication of accidents or these elemental furies are coming at him with a purpose of malice, with a strength beyond control, with an unbridled Thesaurus adventures : (n) experiences, fortunes, confessions, journal, life, biography, autobiography, personal narrative. disenchanting: ( adj) disillusioning. enticing: ( adj, v) alluring; ( adj) tempting, attractive, beguiling, inviting, seductive, engaging, fetching, appealing, fascinating, enthralling. ANTONYMS: (adj ) unappealing, unattractive, revolting. furies: (n) Eumenides. gentlemanly: ( adj) courteous, polite, chivalrous, refined, gallant, suave, mannerly, genteel, gentle, well-bred; (n) gentleman. ANTONYMS: ( adj) rude, unbecoming. indefinable : (adj ) ineffable, unspeakable, vague, indeterminate, undefinable, inexpressible, elusive, indefinite, undefined, nondescript, equivocal. ANTONYMS: (adj ) concrete, precise. prosaic: (adj ) commonplace, dull, monotonous, pedestrian, prosy, ordinary, uninteresting, trite, boring, humdrum, everyday. ANTONYMS: (adj ) idealistic, imaginative, sensitive, inspired, exciting, inspiring, interesting, original, romantic. regions : (n) area, region, parts. tractable : (adj, prep ) docile; ( adj) obedient, ductile, tame, gentle, yielding, manageable; ( adj, v) pliable, flexible, pliant, plastic. ANTONYMS: (adj) intractable, unmanageable, unruly, rebellious.

Lord J im 14 cruel ty tha t mea ns to tea r out of hi m his hope and his fear, the p ain of h is fatigue and his lon ging for re st: which mean s to smash, to destroy, to anni hilate all he has seen , kno wn, loved, en joyed, or hated; al l that is p ricel ess and n ecess ary -- t he sunsh ine, the memorie s, the future; w hich me ans t o sweep the whole prec ious worl d utterl y a way from hi s si ght by the si mple a nd a ppal ling act of ta king his life.% Jim, disabl ed by a fallin g spar at the beginn ing o f a week of which hi s Scotti sh ca ptain used to sa y af terwa rds, 'M an! it's a pairfect m eeracle to m e how she lived thr ough it!' spe nt many day s stretched o n his bac k, d azed, b attered, hopel ess, and tormented a s if at the bottom of an aby ss of unre st. He did not care what the end would be, and in his luc id moments o vervalued his indifference. The da nger, when not seen, ha s the imperf ect va gueness of hum an thought. The fear grows sh adowy ; and I magin ation , the enemy of men, the fath er of all terror s, unstimu lated , sink s to rest in the dulln ess of ex hausted emotion. Jim saw nothi ng but the di sorder of hi s tossed ca bin. He la y there ba ttened down i n the midst of a sm all dev astation, and fe lt se cretly glad he had not to g o on deck. But now and ag ain an uncont rollab le ru sh of ang uish would gr ip hi m bodily, m ake him gasp an d writhe under the bl ankets, a nd then the unin tellig ent bruta lity of an existence li able to the agony of su ch sensations filled him w ith a despairin g desir e to esca pe at any cost . Then fine w eather ret urned, and he t hought no m ore ab out It. His lame ne ss, howev er, persi sted, and when t he shi p arr ived at an E astern port he had to go to the ho spital . His re covery w as slo w, an d he w as le ft behin d. There were only two other patients in the white men's ward : the purser of a gunbo at, wh o had b roken his l eg f allin g down a h atchway; and a kind o f ra ilw ay contractor from a neighb ouring prov ince, afflict ed by some mys terious t ropic al dise ase , who held t he doct or for an as s, and indu lge d in secret debauche rie s of pa tent medi cine whi ch his Ta mil serv ant used to smuggle i n wi th unw ear ied devoti on. They tol d ea ch other the sto ry of their lives, played c ards a little, or, yawnin g and in pyjamas, lounged through the da y i n ea sy- chai rs wi thout sa ying a word. The hospital stood on a hill, an d a gentle b reeze enter ing through the Thesaurus annihila te: (v) er adicate, exterminate, eliminate, wipe out , extinguish, des troy, qu ash, crush, demolish, que nch, extirpate. ANTONY MS: ( v) build, help, save, protect, surrender. dullness : (n) ap athy, blun tness, boredo m, drea riness , fla tnes s, tediu m, obt useness, torpor, monotony, leth argy ; (adj, n ) phlegm. ANTONY MS: ( n) brightness, intensity, brilli ance, excitement, intelligence, shi ne, asperity, animation, glo ss, clarity, variation. gunboa t: (n) corvet te, sloop of war, can, bom b vessel, boa t. lam enes s: (n) limp, claudicati on, gam eness, gim piness, fee blene ss, halt, limping, crippleness, di sability of walking. pur ser: (n) bu rsar, stew ard, treasu rer, flight attendant, off icer, purse b earer. unintelligent : (adj) dull, silly, sensel ess, fooli sh, mindless, brainle ss, idiotic, inane, sh allow, st olid, thick. ANTONY MS: ( adj) intelligent, bright, clever, wise, confid ent, sensi ble. unwe aried: (adj) in defatigable, untiring, tireless, untired, indomitabl e, unfl agging, industrio us, tolerant, persi stent, persevering, labori ous. ANT ONYM: ( adj) impatient. writhe : (adj, v) dist ort, wrest; ( v) contort, w riggl e, squirm, w rench, worm, coil, wiggle, thrash, warp.

Joseph Conrad 15 windows, always flung wide open, brought into the bare room the softness of the sky, the languor of the earth, the bewitching breath of the Eastern waters. There were perfumes in it, suggestions of infini te repose, the gift of endless dreams. Jim looked every day over the thickets of gardens, beyond the roofs of the town, over the fronds of palms growing on the sh ore, at that roadstead which is a thoroughfare to the East,--at the roadstead dotted by garlanded islets, lighted by festal sunshine, its ships like toys, its brilliant activity resembling a holiday pageant , with the eternal serenity of the Eastern sky overhead and the smiling peace of the Eastern seas possessing the space as far as the horizon. % Directly he could walk without a stick, he descended into the town to look for some opportunity to get home. Nothing offered just then, and, while waiting, he associated naturally with the men of his calling in the port. These were of two kinds. Some, very few and seen there but seldom, led mysterious lives, had preserved an undefaced energy with the temper of buccaneers and the eyes of dreamers. They appeared to live in a cr azy maze of plans, hopes, dangers, enterprises, ahead of civilisation, in the dark places of the sea; and their death was the only event of their fantastic existence that seemed to have a reasonable certitude of achievement. The majority we re men who, like himself, thrown there by some accident, had remained as officers of country ships. They had now a horror of the home service, with its harder conditions, severer view of duty, and the hazard of stormy oceans. They were attuned to the eternal peace of Eastern sky and sea. They loved short passages, good deck-chairs, large native crews, and the distinction of being white. They shuddered at the thought of hard work, and led precariously easy lives, always on the verge of dismissal, always on the verge of engagement, serving Chinamen, Ar abs, half-castes--would have served the devil himself had he made it easy enough. They talked everlastingly of turns of luck: how So-and-so got charge of a boat on the coast of China--a soft thing; how this one had an easy billet in Japan somewhere, and that one was doing well in the Siamese navy; and in all they said--in their actions, in their looks, in their persons--could be detected the soft spot, the place of decay, the determination to lounge safely through existence. Thesaurus attuned: ( adj) friendl y, companionable, keyed, similar in temperament, adjusted. bewitching : (adj, v ) charming, fascinating, captivating, engaging; (adj) attractive, seductive, lovely, winning, entrancing, enthralling; ( v) bewitch. billet: ( n) position, note, berth, job, bar, post, ticket, quarters; ( v) quarter, accommodate, lodge. everlastingly : (adv ) perpetually, always, lastingly, continually, endlessly, unendingly, incessantly, permanently, constantly, undyingly; (adj, adv ) forever. festal: (adj ) convivial, gala, solemn, festival, cheery, joyous, jovial, merry, gay, ceremonious, happy. garlanded : (adj ) decorated, ornamented, festooned, decked, bedecked, bejeweled, decked out. languor : (adj, n ) inactivity, inertia, feebleness; ( n) lethargy, fatigue, infirmity, lassitude, weakness, indifference, ennui; ( adj) atony. ANTONYM: ( n) energy. pageant: (n) spectacle, ostentation, ceremony, pomp, representation, exhibition, procession, pageantry, cavalcade, parade, scene. thoroughfare : (n) road, street, highway, avenue, passage, way, route, path, boulevard, track, roadway. undefaced : (adj ) undeformed.

Lord J im 16 To Jim that gossipin g crowd, view ed as seamen , seemed at fir st more unsubstan tial than so m any sha dows. But at len gth he foun d a fascinat ion in t he sight o f those m en, in their appearance o f d oing so w ell o n such a small allowanc e of dange r an d t oil. In time, b eside the orig inal d isd ain there grew up slowly anoth er sentiment; and su dden ly, giv ing up the idea o f going home, h e took a berth as chi ef m ate of the Pa tna .% The Patna wa s a loca l st eamer as old a s the hills, le an like a gre yhound, and eaten up wi th rust worse tha n a condemned wa ter- tank. She wa s owned by a Chinam an, c hart ered b y an Arab , an d com manded by a sort of rene ga de Ne w South Wales German, very anxious to c urse publicly his na tive country, but who, apparent ly on the st rengt h of Bism arck 's vict orio us policy , brut alised all those he was not afraid of, and wor e a 'blood -an d-iron ' air ,' combined wit h a p urple no se and a re d moustache . Aft er she had b een painted outside and whit ew ash ed insi de, e ight hundred pi lgrims (more o r less ) were d riven on boar d of her a s sh e lay with steam up along side a wooden jetty . They stre ame d abo ard ove r three g ang wa ys, they streamed in urged by faith and the hope of paradise, they strea med i n wi th a conti nuous tramp a nd shuf fle of bare feet, without a word, a murm ur, or a look back; and when clear o f confin ing rails sp read o n al l s ide s o ver t he deck , fl owed for ward and aft, overf lowed down the ya wni ng ha tchways, filled the inner recesses of the sh ip-- like w ater f illing a cist ern , lik e wat er f lowing int o crevices and cranni es, like wa ter risi ng silentl y even wi th the rim. Eight hun dred men an d women with faith and hopes, w ith affec tions an d me mories, they had co llected there, comin g from north and south a nd f rom the out skirts of the Ea st, after treadi ng the jungl e paths, d escen ding the rive rs, coastin g in prau s along the sh allows , cro ssin g in smal l c anoes from i sland t o is land , pa ssing t hrough su ffer ing , m eet ing st rang e sights , beset by strange fears , upheld by one desire. They came fr om solitary h uts in t he wilder ness, f rom po pulous campongs, from villages by the sea. A t the call of an idea they ha d l eft thei r f orests, thei r cle arin gs, the protection o f their rulers, their prosper ity, their poverty, the surro undin gs o f th eir youth and the gr aves of thei r fa thers. They ca me covered wi th dust, wi th swea t, wi th grime , w ith rag s-- Thesaurus coast ing: (adj) dru gged; ( v) to slide. confining : (adj) rest ricting, limiting, narrow, confined, o ppressive, stringent, con stricti ve, restrictive, closem outhed ; (v) confine; ( n) contracti on. gossiping : (adj) gabby, garr ulo us, scandalous; (n) gossipmongering. grim e: (n, v ) soil; (n) filth, dirt, squalor, grease; ( v) dirty, col ly, begrime, contamin ate, poll ute; (adj, v ) sm udge. ANTONY MS: ( n, v ) clean; ( n) cleanline ss. jetty : (n) gr oyne, pier, break water, dock, mole, bu lwark, berth, q uay, wharf, ju tty, ha rbor . populous : (adj) mul titudinous, crowded, dens ely p opulated, multiple, thick, inh abited, num erous, manifold, multipli ed; (adj, v ) teemin g; (v) clo sely p acked. ANTONY M: ( adj) uninh abited. recesses: (n) penetralia, bowels, in side. ren egad e: (n) des erter, tu rncoa t, defector, tra itor, bet rayer, ru naway; (adj, n ) recreant, cr aven; ( n, v ) rebel, pervert; ( v) ra t. AN TONY MS: ( adj) loyal; ( n) follower. shallows : (n) shelf, sho als. unsubsta ntia l: (adj) unreal, airy, thin, imagin ary, sh adowy, light, empty, immaterial, in signif icant, vap orous; (adj, v ) flim sy. white washed: (adj) overpowered, overcome, cr ushed, conq uered, beaten, ro uted, pai nted.

Joseph Conrad 17 the strong men at the head of family parties, the lean old men pressing forward without hope of return; young boys with fearless eyes glancing curiously, shy little girls with tumbled long hair; the timid women muffled up and clasping to their breasts, wrapped in loose ends of soiled head-cloths, their sleeping babies, the unconscious pilgrims of an exacting belief. % 'Look at dese cattle,' said the German skipper to his new chief mate. An Arab, the leader of that pious voyage, came last. He walked slowly aboard, handsome and grave in his white gown and large turban. A string of servants followed, loaded with his luggage; the Patna cast off and backed away from the wharf. She was headed between two small islets, crossed obliquely the anchoring- ground of sailing-ships, swung through half a circle in the shadow of a hill, then ranged close to a ledge of foaming reefs. The Arab, standing up aft, recited aloud the prayer of travellers by sea. He invoke d the favour of the Most High upon that journey, implored His blessi ng on men's toil and on the secret purposes of their hearts; the steamer pounded in the dusk the calm water of the Strait; and far astern of the pilgrim ship a screw-pile lighthouse, planted by unbelievers on a treacherous shoal, seemed to wink at her it s eye of flame, as if in derision of her errand of faith. She cleared the Strait, crossed the ba y, continued on her way through the 'One-degree' passage. She held on straight for the Red Sea under a serene sky, under a sky scorching and unclouded , enveloped in a fulgor of sunshine that killed all thought, oppressed the heart, withered all impulses of strength and energy. And under the sinister splendour of that sky the sea, blue and profound, remained still, without a stir, without a ripple, without a wrinkle-- viscous, stagnant, dead. The Patna, with a slight hiss, passed over that plain, luminous and smooth, unrolled a black ribbon of smok e across the sky, left behind her on the water a white ribbon of foam that vanished at once, like the phantom of a track drawn upon a lifeless sea by the phantom of a steamer. Every morning the sun, as if keeping pace in his revolutions with the progress of the pilgrimage, emerged with a silent burst of light exactly at the Thesaurus astern : (adv ) aft, after, aback, behind, sternmost, rearwards; ( adj, adv) backward; ( adj) back, rear. ANTONYM: ( adv) forward. clasping : (adj ) tendril. errand: ( n) chore, mission, job, task, assignment, embassy, duty, charge, messenger, communication, work. foaming: ( adj) foamy, effervescent, effervescing, bubbly, bubbling, sparkling, spumy; ( adj, n) frothing; (n) surging, effervescence, scum. fulgor : (n) light. pounded : (adj ) beaten, ground, crushed, pulverized, minced, broken up, milled. scorching : (adj ) hot, sweltering, scalding, baking, broiling, boiling, sultry, stifling, torrid; ( v) fiery, flaming. ANTONYMS: ( adj) cold, fresh, cool. soiled : (adj ) grubby, dirty, nasty, grimy, unclean, filthy, muddy, black, mucky, polluted, foul. ANTONYMS: (adj ) pure, immaculate. tumbled : (adj ) disordered. turban : (n) peruke, pelt, periwig, pillbox, toque, front, caftan, chignon, turbant, headgear, millinery. unclouded : (adj ) light, bright, cloudless, serene, fair, clean, pure, in full, loose, blank; ( adj, v) unobscured. withered : (adj ) wizened, sear, shriveled, thin, shrunken, dry, dried up, wilted, faded, wizen; ( v) lame. ANTONYM: ( adj) plump.

Lord J im 18 same d istance a stern o f the ship, caught u p w ith h er a t n oon, p ouring the concentrated fire of his r ays on the p ious purposes o f the men, glided past on h is descent, and sank m ysteriously into the sea even ing after even ing , preservin g the sam e di stanc e ahea d of h er adv anc ing b ows. The fiv e whit es o n b oard liv ed am idsh ips , isolated from t he human car go. The awnings covere d the deck w ith a white roo f fr om stem to stern, an d a faint h um, a low murmur of sad voices, alone r eveale d the presen ce of a crow d of people upon the great blaze o f the ocean. Such w ere the d ays, still, hot, hea vy, disa ppea ring one by one into th e past , as if falling int o an abyss for eve r open in the wake of the ship; and the ship, lonel y under a wis p of smoke, held on her steadf ast way black and smould ering in a lumino us imme nsi ty, as if scorch ed by a fl ame f licked a t her from a he av en wit hout pity.% The nights descend ed on her like a benediction . Thesaurus abyss : (n) gorge, r avine, chas m, gu lf, deep, purgatory, de pth, hell, gap, Gehenna , pit. ANT ONYMS: ( n) junction, ju ncture. amidships : (adv) m idships. benediction : (n, v ) blessing; ( n) gr ace, orison, th anks, c ommunion, doxology, hosa nna, invoca tion, supplic ation, b eatit ude; ( v) bless. ANTONY MS: ( n) damning, malediction, anath ema. descende d: (v) extr aught. immensi ty: (n) gre atnes s, enormousne ss, im mensene ss, infinity, bul k, large ness, infinit eness, infinitude, vastne ss, gra ndeur, grandness. ANT ONYM: ( n) lightne ss. murmur : (n, v ) grumble, mu mbl e, hum, whi sper, mut ter, whine, b abble, dro ne; (v) compl ain, bub ble, bre athe. scorch ed: (adj) baked, a dust, bu rnt, dry, s eared, bu rned , cha rred, torrid, dried o ut, des troyed, drier. ANTONY MS: ( adj) wet, humid. smouldering : (adj) live, angry. steadf ast: (adj, v) solid, firm, permanent, loy al, fast, fixed, immovable, faith ful; (adj) re solute, determined, steady . ANTONY MS: (adj) irreso lute, disl oyal, unreliable, und ependable, unc ommitted, weak, transient, fic kle, co mpliant, acquie scent, inc onstant. wisp : (n) lock, fa got, strand, cu rl, tress , piece, whisp, piece of ha ir, pu ff, slip, small per son.

Joseph Conrad 19 CHAPTER 3 A marvellous stillness pervaded the world, and the stars, together with the serenity of their rays, seemed to shed up on the earth the assurance of everlasting security. The young moon recurved, and shining low in the west, was like a slender shaving thrown up from a bar of gold, and the Arabian Sea, smooth and cool to the eye like a sheet of ice, extended its perfect level to the perfect circle of a dark horizon. The propeller turned without a check, as though its beat had been part of the scheme of a safe universe; and on each side of the Patna two deep folds of water, permanent and sombre on the unwrinkled shimmer, enclosed within their straight and diverging ridges a few white swirls of foam bursting in a low hiss, a few wavelets, a few ripples, a few undulations that, left behind, agitated the surface of the sea for an instant after the passage of the ship, subsided splashing gently, calmed down at last into the circular stillness of water and sky with the black speck of the moving hull remaining everlastingly in its centre. % Jim on the bridge was penetrated by the great certitude of unbounded safety and peace that could be read on the silent aspect of nature like the certitude of fostering love upon the placid tenderness of a mother's face. Below the roof of awnings, surrendered to the wisdom of white men and to their courage, trusting the power of their unbelief and the iron shell of their fire-ship, the pilgrims of an exacting faith slept on mats, on blankets, on bare planks, on every deck, in all the dark corners, wrapped in dyed cloths, muffled in soiled rags, with their heads Thesaurus diverging: ( adj) branching, divergingly, centrifugal, divaricate, oblique. dyed : (adj ) colored, tinted, coloured, bleached, stained, painted, artificially coloured, biased, artificial, unreal, colorful. propeller : (n) airscrew, prop, fan, helix, twin screws, turbine, screw propeller, axial flow impeller, aircraft propeller, extortioner, airplane propeller. recurved : (adj ) curved, recurvous. shaving: ( adj, n) paring, sliver, shiver; (n, v) shave; (n) cut, splinter, rasher, grazing, slice; ( adj) clipping, driblet. shimmer : (n, v ) shine, flash, gleam, sparkle, glitter, glimmer, beam, luster, sheen; ( v) flicker, twinkle. speck : (adj, n ) point, atom, particle; ( n) blot, flaw, smudge, blotch, blemish, grain, mote, dot. ANTONYM: ( n) lot.unbelief: (n) atheism, incredulity, skepticism, distrust, scepticism, misbelief, agnosticism, doubt, heresy, suspicion, misgiving. ANTONYM: (n) faith. unbounded : (adj ) immeasurable, limitless, endless, infinite, immense, measureless, unlimited, vast, illimitable, unmeasured, absolute. unwrinkled : (adj ) smooth, high, politic, brant, liquid; ( v) soft, glabrous, oily, slippery, glassy, lubricous. ANTONYM: ( adj) wrinkled.

Lord J im 20 resting on sm all bund les, with their fac es pres sed to bent forearms: the men , th e women, the chi ldren; the ol d wi th the yo ung, the decrepi t wi th the l usty--a ll equal befor e sleep, de ath's brother. % A draught of air , fanned from forwar d by the speed of the ship, passed stead ily through the long gloom betw een the high bulw arks , swept over the rows of pron e bodies; a few dim flames in globe-lam ps were h ung short here an d there under the ridge -pole s, and in the blurred c ircle s of light thrown down and trembl ing sl ightl y to the unceasin g vibration of the ship a ppeared a c hin upturned, tw o closed eye lid s, a d ark hand with silver rin gs, a meagre lim b drap ed in a t orn cov ering , a he ad b ent back, a n ake d foot , a t hroat bar ed and stret ched as if of ferin g it self t o the knife . The well -to-do had made for t heir families shel ters wi th hea vy boxes a nd du sty m ats; the poor repo sed side by side wi th a ll they ha d on ea rth tied up i n a ra g under their hea ds; the lone ol d men slept, wi th dra wn-up l egs, upon thei r pr ayer- carpets, wi th thei r hands over thei r ears and one elbow on each side of th e face ; a fath er, his shou lders up an d his knees under his forehe ad, dozed deje cte dly by a boy who slept on his b ack w ith tousled ha ir and one a rm comma ndi ngly extended; a woman cove red from h ead to foot, like a corpse, wit h a piece of whit e sheet ing, had a na ked child in t he hollow of e ach arm ; the Arab 's b elon gings, p iled righ t aft , m ade a heav y m oun d of broken outlines, with a cargo-lamp swung ab ov e, and a gre at confus ion of vague forms behind: gleams of paunc hy brass pots, the foot-rest of a deck-ch air, blades of spears, the straight scabbard of an old swo rd lean ing a gain st a heap of pillow s, the spout of a t in coffee -pot . The pat ent log on t he taffrail peri odi cally rang a single tinkl ing str oke for ever y mile traver sed on an errand of faith . Above the ma ss of sl eepers a faint a nd pa tient si gh at ti mes fl oa ted, the ex ha lation of a troub led drea m; and short meta llic cl angs b urst ing out sud denl y in the depths of the shi p, the ha rsh scra pe of a sh ovel, the violent slam of a furn ace-door, exploded brutally, as if the men hand ling t he my steriou s thing s below ha d t heir breas ts full o f fierce a nger: w hile the slim h igh h ull o f the steamer wen t on evenly ahe ad, witho ut a sway of her bare masts, cleaving conti nuousl y the grea t ca lm of the wa ters under the i naccessi ble sereni ty of the sky. Thesaurus bared: (adj) naked, unclothed, exposed. breasts: (n) chest, b ooby. bulwa rks: (n) bre akwat er, barrier. cleaving : (adj) ad apted, coh erent, accord ant. comma ndingly : (adv ) peremptorily, commanding, impr essive ly, imperiously, superi orly, imposingly, grandly, domineeri ngly, imperatively, bo ssily, overbeari ngly. ANTONY M: ( adv) weakly. dejec tedly : (adv ) des pondently, dispiritedly, gloom ily, glumly, downcastly, dis mally, downhea rtedly, depres sedly, disheartenedly, mel anchol y, lowly. ANTONY MS: ( adv ) cheerfully, enthusiastic ally. exh alation : (n) emanation, expirati on, breathing out, st eam, vapour, emissi on, fum es, vapor, puff, effus ion, wind. paunchy : (adj) abd ominous, ob ese, potbellied. scabbard : (n) case, vagina, casin g, pod , covering, cover, po uch, pocket, fo b. taffrail: (n) railing. tinkling : (adj) clinking, tinkly, tintinna bulary, rev erbera nt; (n) ting. unce asing : (adj) ce aseless, ince ssant, perpetual, co ntinuo us, co nstant, continual, everl asting, eternal, lasting, uninterr upted, endless. ANTONY MS: ( adj) ac ute, intermittent, sporadic.

Joseph Conrad 21 Jim %paced athwart , and his footsteps in the vast silence were loud to his own ears, as if echoed by the watchful star s: his eyes, roaming about the line of the horizon, seemed to gaze hungrily into the unattainable, and did not see the shadow of the coming event. The only shadow on the sea was the shadow of the black smoke pouring heavily from the funnel its immense streamer, whose end was constantly dissolving in the air. Two Malays, silent and almost motionless, steered , one on each side of the wheel, whose brass rim shone fragmentarily in the oval of light thrown out by the binnacle. Now and then a hand, with black fingers alternately letting go and catching hold of revolving spokes, appeared in the illumined part; the links of wheel-chai ns ground heavily in the grooves of the barrel. Jim would glance at the compass, would glance around the unattainable horizon, would stretch himself till his joints cracked, with a leisurely twist of the body, in the very excess of well-being; and, as if made audacious by the invincible aspect of the peace, he felt he cared for nothing that could happen to him to the end of his days. From time to time he glanced idly at a chart pegged out with four drawing-pins on a low three-legged table abaft the steering-gear case. The sheet of paper portraying the depths of the sea presented a shiny surface under the light of a bull's-eye lamp lashed to a stanchion, a surface as level and smooth as the glimmering surface of the waters. Parallel rulers with a pair of dividers reposed on it; the ship's position at last noon was marked with a small black cross, and the straight pencil-line drawn firmly as far as Perim figured the course of the ship--the path of souls towards the holy place, the promise of salvation, the reward of eternal life--while the pencil with its sharp end touching the Somali coast lay round and still like a naked ship's spar floating in the pool of a sheltered dock. 'How steady she goes,' thought Jim with wonder, with something like gratitude for this high peace of sea and sky. At such times his thoughts would be full of valorous deeds: he loved these dreams and the success of his imaginary achievements. They were the best parts of life, its secret truth, its hidden reality. They had a go rgeous virility, the charm of vagueness, they passed before him with an heroic tread; they carried his soul away with them and made it drunk with the divine philtre of an unbounded confidence in itself. There was nothing he could not face . He was so pleased with the idea that Thesaurus abaft: (adv ) behind, aback, after, astern, backward, sternmost; ( adj) back. athwart : (adj, adv, n, prep) across; ( adv, prep) aslant, cross; ( adj, adv, prep) thwart; (adj, adv) crosswise; ( adv) sideways, obliquely, transversely, traverse, overthwart, crossways. binnacle : (n) housing, bittacle. bull's-eye: ( n) victory, target, center, crowning achievement; ( adj) punctilious, perfect, exact. dividers : (n) compass, compasses, pair of compasses. fragmentarily : (adv ) fragmentally, brokenly, partially, sketchily, disconnectedly, incompletely, piecemeally, scrappily, fractionally, oddly, disjointedly. glimmering : (n) inkling, ghost, luminosity, light, hint, apparition, radiance; ( adj) glittering, glimmery, crepusculous, sciolism. stanchion : (n) brace, stake, pillar, buttress, stay, pole, crutch, post, banister, handhold stanchion, baluster. steered : (adj ) directed. streamer : (n) banner, standard, ensign, pennant, pennon, emblem, pennoncelle, pennoncel, colors, sign, ribbon. valorous : (adj ) valiant, courageous, brave, fearless, intrepid, gallant, bold, stout, heroic, undaunted, game. ANTONYM: ( adj) cowardly.

Lord J im 22 he smiled, k eeping perfu nctor ily his eyes ahead; and when he happened to glance back he saw the w hite streak of the w ake drawn as straight by the ship's keel upon the sea as the b lack li ne dra wn by the pencil upon the chart. % The ash-b uckets racketed , clan king up and down the stoke-hold ventilator s, and thi s ti n-pot cl atter wa rned hi m the end of hi s wa tch wa s nea r. He si ghed wi th content, wi th regret as well at ha ving to pa rt f rom tha t sereni ty whi ch fostered the adventurous freedom of his though ts. He wa s a li ttle sleepy too, and felt a pleasurable languo r running thro ugh ever y limb as though all the b lood in his body had turned to w arm milk. H is sk ipper h ad come up noiselessl y, in pyjamas and with his sle eping-j ack et flun g wide o pen. Red o f face , only h alf awake, the le ft eye part ly closed , the righ t star ing st upid and glassy, h e hung h is big head ov er the chart and scrat ched his ribs slee pily. Ther e was somethin g obscene in the sight of h is naked flesh. His b ared bre ast g listened soft an d gr easy as though he ha d swea ted out hi s f at in his sleep. He pronounced a profession al remark in a v oice har sh an d dead , rese mbling t he rasping sound of a wood -fil e on t he edge of a pl ank; t he fold of h is do uble chin hun g lik e a bag t riced up clo se under the hinge of his jaw . Jim started, an d his answ er was full of deference; b ut the odious and fle shy fig ure, as though seen for t he first time in a reve aling moment, fixed itself in his memory for ever as the inc arnation of everything vile and b ase that lur ks in t he world we love: i n our own hea rts we trust for our salvat ion , in the men t hat surro und us , in t he sight s that fill ou r eyes , in the sounds that fill o ur ear s, an d in t he air that fills o ur lungs. The t hin go ld shav ing o f the moon f loa ting s lowly downwards ha d lost itself on the darke ned sur face of the waters, and the eternity beyond the sky seem ed to come down nea rer to the ea rth, wi th the augmented glitter of the sta rs, wi th the more profound sombr eness in t he lustre of t he ha lf-transp arent dome covering the flat d isc of an op aq ue sea. The ship moved so smoothly that her onward motion wa s im perc ep tib le to the senses of men, as though she had been a crowded planet speeding through the dark space s of ether behin d the swarm of suns , in t he a ppall ing an d calm so litud es aw aiting the brea th of future crea tions. 'Hot i s no n ame for it dow n below,' said a vo ice. Thesaurus fost ered: (adj) no urished. imperceptibl e: (adj) invisibl e, intangib le, insen sible, faint, evane scent, in audi ble, negligibl e, indiscernibl e, unse en, unnotice able, gentle. ANTONY MS: (adj) obvious, overwhelmi ng, clear, visible, perceptible, heav y, noticeable, definite, consider able, conspic uous, strong. noisel essly : (adv ) silently, so undlessly, stilly, softl y, mutel y, delicately, wordlessly, gently, speechle ssly; ( adj, adv ) ste althily; ( adj) noisele ss. ANTONY MS: ( adv ) heavily, audibly. odious : (adj, v ) hat eful, obn oxious; (adj) detest able, hid eous, nasty, execrable, disgus ting, abhorrent, abom inable, heino us, forbidding. ANTONY MS: ( adj) pleasant, delightful, agre eabl e, lovabl e, nice. perfunctor ily: (adv ) superfici ally, automatically, carelessly, as a formality, invol untarily, quickly, hastily, unthinking ly, passi ngly, automatic ly, fleetin gly. ANTONY M: (adv ) thoro ughly. rasp ing: (adj) ha rsh, rough, raspy, strident, gravelly, h oarse, rauco us, husk y, gutt ural; ( n) rasp, friction. ANTONY MS: ( n) smo othness ; (adj) velvety, smooth, h armonious. ribs: (n) dinner, che st, bo som. sombr eness : (n) glo ominess, gloom, gravity, grave ness, glumne ss, sem idarkness, sobriety, sober ness.

Joseph Conrad 23 Jim %smiled without looking round. The skipper presented an unmoved breadth of back: it was the renegade's trick to appear pointedly unaware of your existence unless it suited his pu rpose to turn at you with a devouring glare before he let loose a torrent of foamy, abusive jargon that came like a gush from a sewer. Now he emitted only a sulky grunt; the second engineer at the head of the bridge-ladder, kneading with damp palms a dirty sweat-rag, unabashed, continued the tale of his complaints. The sailors had a good time of it up here, and what was the use of them in the world he would be blowed if he could see. The poor devils of engineers had to get the ship along anyhow, and they could very well do the rest too; by gosh they--'Shut up!' growled the German stolidly. 'Oh yes! Shut up--and when anything goes wrong you fly to us, don't you?' went on the other. He was more than half co oked, he expected; but anyway, now, he did not mind how much he sinned, becaus e these last three days he had passed through a fine course of training for the place where the bad boys go when they die--b'gosh, he had--besides being made jolly well deaf by the blasted racket below. The durned, compound, surface-condensing, rotten scrap-heap rattled and banged down there like an old deck-winch, only more so; and what made him risk his life every night and day that God made amongst the refuse of a breaking-up yard flying round at fifty- seven revolutions, was more than _he_ could tell. He must have been born reckless, b'gosh. He . . . 'Where did you get drink?' inquired the German, very savage; but motionless in the light of the binnacle, like a clumsy effigy of a man cut out of a block of fat. Jim went on smiling at the retreating horizon; his heart was full of generous impulses, and his thought was contemplating his own superiority. 'Drink!' repeated the engineer with amiable scorn: he was hanging on with both hands to the rail, a shadowy figure with flexible legs. 'Not from you, captain. You're far too mean, b'gosh. You would let a good man die sooner than give him a drop of schnapps . That's what you Germans call economy. Penny wise, po und foolish.' He became sentimental. The chief had given him a four-finger nip ab out ten o'clock--'only one, s'elp me!'-- good old chief; but as to getting the ol d fraud out of his bunk--a five-ton crane couldn't do it. Not it. Not to-night anyh ow. He was sleeping sweetly like a little child, with a bottle of prime brandy under his pillow. From the thick throat of the Thesaurus blowed : (n) blowen, blowzy. devils: ( n) unclean spirits. devouring : (adv ) devouringly; ( adj) esurient, edacious, avid, greedy, voraginous, ravenous; ( n) fire. effigy: (n) likeness, figure, copy, idol, simulacrum, picture, effigies, dummy, appearance, semblance, graven image. foamy : (adj ) effervescent, foaming, bubbly, spumy, spumous, sudsy, effervescing, bubbling, beaten, yeasty, barmy. gush : (n, v ) flood, flow, spurt, jet, discharge, stream, rush, surge; ( n) burst, effusion; (v) course. kneading : (n) massage, milling, petrissage, rubdown. retreating : (n) flight; ( adj) moving back. schnapps : (n) liquor, schnaps, spirits; (v ) highball, peg, rum, rye, usquebaugh, sling, xeres, whisky. stolidly : (adv ) stupidly, phlegmatically, phlegmaticly, doltishly, dully, bovinely, obtusely, heavily, bluntly, firmly, unintelligently. unabashed : (adj ) shameless, brazen, barefaced, unashamed, undaunted, aweless, blatant, bold, unapprehensive, unflinching, unshrinking. ANTONYMS: ( adj) embarrassed, remorseful, prudish, discreet, ashamed, abashed, apologetic.

Lord J im 24 comma nder %of the Patna came a low rumble, on w hich t he soun d of t he word schwein fluttered hi gh an d low like a capric iou s feather in a faint st ir of air. He and the ch ief engin eer h ad been cron ies for a good few ye ars--ser ving the sam e jov ial, cr aft y, old C hinam an, w ith horn-rim med go ggle s an d st rings o f red silk plaited into the venerable grey hairs o f his pigtail . T he qu ay -side opinion in t he Patna 's home- port wa s that these two in the wa y of braz en p ecu lation 'had don e together pretty wel l everythi ng you ca n thi nk of.' Outwa rdly t hey were badly matched: one dull-eye d, m alevo lent, an d of soft fle shy curves; t he ot her lean, all hollows, w ith a head long and bony like the head of an old horse, w ith sunken cheeks, w ith sunken temp les, w ith an indifferent g lazed g lance of sunken eyes. He h ad been stranded out East somewh ere--in C anton, in Sh angh ai, or p erhap s in Yokoham a; he probably did not care to remember himsel f t he exact loca lity, nor yet the ca use of hi s sh ipwreck. He had been, in mercy to his youth, kicked quietly out of hi s shi p twenty yea rs ago or more, a nd i t mi ght ha ve been so much worse fo r him that the memory of t he episod e had in it hardly a tr ace of misfort une. T hen, ste am n avig ation expandin g in these se as and men of his cr aft being scarce at first, he h ad 'got on' after a sort. He was eag er to let stranger s know in a dis mal mumble that he was 'an old stag er out here.' Wh en he moved, a ske leton se emed to sway loose in his clothes; h is walk w as m ere wande ring, and he was given to w ander thus aro und the en gine-room sk yligh t, smokin g, wi thout reli sh, doc tored tobacco in a b rass b owl at the end of a cherrywood stem four feet lon g, with the imbe cil e gravity of a thinker evolvin g a s ystem o f philosophy fr om t he haz y glimps e of a truth. He w as usually anything but free with his priv ate store of liquor; but o n that night he had dep arted from his princip les, so that his seco nd, a we ak-h eaded ch ild of Wap ping, what wit h the unexp ectedn ess of the trea t a nd the strength of the stuff , had become very happy, chee ky, an d talkat ive. The fur y of the New South W ales German was extreme; he puffe d lik e an exhaust-p ipe, an d Jim, faintly am used by the sce ne, wa s i mpatient f or the ti me when he coul d get bel ow: the l ast ten mi nutes of the wa tch were irri tating li ke a gun tha t ha ngs fire; those men did no t belong to th e worl d of heroi c adventure; they weren't ba d cha ps though. Ev en the ski pper hims elf . . . Hi s gorge ros e a t the ma ss of pantin g flesh from which issued Thesaurus brazen : (adj) au dacious, impu dent, brassy, insolent, bold, brash, impertinent, blat ant, flagrant, forwa rd, s aucy. AN TONY MS: ( adj) shy, abas hed, pru dish, res erved, quiet, discreet, resp ectful, ash amed, veiled, modest. doctore d: (adj) corr upt, impu re. imbecil e: (adj) fooli sh, idiotic, fat uous, dumb, imbecil ic, si mple; ( n) idiot, moron, cretin, ass, oaf. AN TONY M: (adj) geni us. mumble : (n, v ) m urmur, whi sper, hum, ru mble; ( v) gr umble, che w, mu tter, ja bber, ta lk, utter, verba lize. peculati on: (n) defalcation, misappropri ation, misapplic ation, stealin g, thievery, thieving, theft, mu lcting, ra id, plundera ge, la rceny. pigta il: (v) br aid, tail, fla p, skirt, tra in; (n) ponytail, tre ss, c oil, pendulum, thin spu n tobacco. pla ited: (adj) wove n, folded, plicated. shipwr eck: (n, v ) ruin; ( adj, v ) sin k; (v) defeat, sc uttle, dest roy, fail; ( n) hulk, accident, wre ckage, wrack, r uination. skylight : (n) shutter, w indow , light, porthole, transom, knowledge, happiness, enlighte nment, felicity, day, cas ement. stag er: (n) vetera n, performer, s tage manager, pra ctition er, s upervi sor, vet, a ntiqu e, mo ssback, old s tager, warh orse, old gee zer. unexp ected ness: (n) extraordinarine ss, inexpectedness, abr uptness.

Joseph Conrad 25 gurgling mutters, a cloudy trickle of filthy expressions; but he was too pleasurably languid to dislike actively this or any other thing. The quality of these men did not matter; he rubbed shoulders with them, but they could not touch him; he shared the air they breathed, but he was different. . . . Would the skipper go for the engineer? . . . The life was easy and he was too sure of himself- -too sure of himself to . . . The line dividing his meditation from a surreptitious doze on his feet was thinner than a thread in a spider's web. % The second engineer was coming by easy transitions to the consideration of his finances and of his courage. 'Who's drunk? I? No, no, captain! That won't do. You ought to know by this time the chief ain't free-hearted enough to make a sparrow drunk, b'gosh. I've never been the worse for liquor in my life; the stuff ain't made yet that would make _me_ drunk. I could drink liquid fire against your whisky peg for peg, b'gosh, and keep as cool as a cucumber . If I thought I was drunk I would jump overboard--do away with myself, b'gosh. I would! Straight! And I won't go off the bridge. Where do you expect me to take the air on a night like this, eh? On deck amongst that vermin down there? Likely--ain't it! And I am not afraid of anything you can do.' The German lifted two heavy fists to heaven and shook them a little without a word. 'I don't know what fear is,' pursued the engineer, with the enthusiasm of sincere conviction. 'I am not afraid of doing all the bloomin' work in this rotten hooker, b'gosh! And a jolly good thing for you that there are some of us about the world that aren't afraid of their lives, or where would you be--you and this old thing here with her plates like brown pape r--brown paper, s'elp me? It's all very fine for you--you get a power of pieces out of her one way and another; but what about me--what do I get? A measly hundred and fifty dollars a month and find yourself. I wish to ask you respectfully--respectfully, mind--who wouldn't chuck a dratted job like this? 'Tain't safe, s'elp me, it ain't! Only I am one of them fearless fellows . . .' He let go the rail and made ample gestur es as if demonstrating in the air the Thesaurus doze: (n, v ) snooze, sleep, slumber, drowse, siesta, forty winks, rest; ( v) catnap, nod, coma, nod off. ANTONYM: ( v) wake. dratted : (adj ) damned, damnable. fearless : (adj, n ) daring; ( adj) brave, dauntless, courageous, undaunted, intrepid, heroic, audacious, gallant, confident, valiant. ANTONYMS: ( adj) afraid, frightened, scared, apprehensive, terrified, timid. fellows : (n) fellow, membership, faculty. measly : (adj, adv ) miserable, stingy; (adj) paltry, small, piddling, petty, trifling, puny, abject, unimportant; (adv ) miserly. ANTONYMS: ( adj) generous, enormous, abundant, plentiful, substantial. pleasurably : (adv ) deliciously, pleasantly, enjoyably, agreeably, pleasingly, gladly, lusciously, nicely. ANTONYM: ( adv) disagreeably. sparrow : (n) hed ge sparrow, sparrows, passerine, house sparrow, accentor, true sparrow, spur, snag, passeriform bird, incitement. surreptitious : (adj ) secret, furtive, clandestine, sneaky, covert, undercover, underground, sly, hidden, occult, concealed. ANTONYMS: ( adj) aboveboard, honest, blatant, overt. vermin : (n) bug, varmint, louse, trash, pest, brute, varment, scum, riffraff, ragtag and bobtail, rabble.

Lord J im 26 shap e and ex tent of his val our; hi s t hin voice d arted in prolon ged squea ks upo n the sea , he ti ptoed ba ck a nd f orth f or the bet ter e mpha sis of uttera nce, and sudden ly pit ched down head -first as t hou gh he had been clubbed from behind. He s aid 'D amn!' as he tumbled; an inst ant o f sil ence fo llo wed upon his screechin g: J im and t he skip per st ag gered fo rwar d b y com mon accord, an d catching themselves up, st ood very st iff and still ga zing, a maze d, at the undisturbed level o f the se a. Then they looked upwar ds at the stars. % What had happened? The whee zy thump of the engi nes went on. Had the earth been ch ecked in her course? The y could not un derstand ; an d sud denly the calm sea , the sky wi thout a cl oud, appea red formi dably ins ecure in their im mobility, as if po ised on the brow of y awnin g destruction . The engine er rebounded v ertica lly full lengt h and c ollapsed ag ain int o a vag ue heap . Thi s hea p sa id 'Wha t's tha t?' i n the muff led accents o f profound grief. A faint no ise as of thunder, of thunder infini tel y remote, les s than a sound, h ard ly m ore t han a vibrat ion, pa ssed s lowl y, and t he sh ip q uivere d in res ponse, as if the t hunder ha d growled d eep down in the water. Th e eyes of th e two Malay s at the wheel glittered tow ards the whit e men, but t heir d ark h ands rem aine d close d on t he spokes. The sharp h ull d riving on it s way seeme d to ris e a few inches in succes sion t hrough its w hole len gth, as t hou gh it had becom e pliab le, an d settled down ag ain r igidly to its work o f cle avin g the smooth sur face of the sea. Its qu iverin g stopped, and the fa int nois e of t hund er cease d all at once, a s thou gh the shi p ha d steamed acro ss a n arrow belt of vibrating wa ter a nd of hummin g air . Thesaurus formidably : (adv ) terrifically, horrificall y, terrificl y, compellingly, persuasiv ely, effect ively, convincingl y, so undly, clearly. gazing : (adj) fixed. immobility : (adj, n) fixity; ( n) fixedness, still nes s, statio nar iness, motionlessne ss, im movability, immovablene ss; ( adj) vitality, stiffne ss, st abilimen t, solidity. ANTONY MS: ( n) bu stle, mov ement. pliable : (adj) elastic , ductile, soft, malle able, flexile, susc eptible, yielding; ( adj, v ) pl astic, lithe, pliant, limber. ANTON YMS: ( adj) stif f, inflexible, intractab le, firm, hard, unyielding, wild. screeching : (n) scr eaming, scr eech, shrieking, bell y lau gh, how ler, s hriek, riot; ( adj) shrill, h arsh, strident. steam ed: (adj) squiffy, miffed, irritated, irate, indignant, incen sed, harried, har assed, stung, so zzled, soused . valour : (n) valor, v aliancy, vali anc e, heroism, co urage, b ravery, valoro usness ,prowes s, daring, pluck, spirit. vibrat ing : (adj) tre mulo us, vibr atory, vibra nt, swingi ng, hollo w, moving, oscill ating, th at osci llates, re son ant; (n) sh aking sy stem . wheezy: (adj) asthmatic, whe ezing, reedy, panting, noi sy, gasping, puffing, reedlike, short of bre ath, winded, breathle ss.

Joseph Conrad 27 CHAPTER %4 A month or so afterwards, when Jim, in answer to pointed questions, tried to tell honestly the truth of this experience, he said, speaking of the ship: 'She went over whatever it was as easy as a snake crawling over a stick.' The illustration was good: the questions were aiming at fa cts, and the official Inquiry was being held in the police court of an Eastern port. He stood elevated in the witness-box, with burning cheeks in a cool lofty room: the big framework of punkahs moved gently to and fro high above his head, and from below many eyes were looking at him out of dark faces, out of white faces, out of red faces, out of faces attentive , spellbound , as if all these people sitting in orderly rows upon narrow benches had been enslaved by the fascination of his voice. It was very loud, it rang startling in his own ears, it was the only sound audible in the world, for the terribly distinct questions that extorted his answers seemed to shape themselves in anguish and pain within his breast,-- came to him poignant and silent like the terrible questioning of one's conscience. Outside the court the sun blazed--within was the wind of great punkahs that made you shiver, the shame that made you burn, the attentive eyes whose glance stabbed. The face of the presiding magistrate, clean shaved and impassible , looked at him deadly pale between the red faces of the two nautical assessors. The light of a broad window under the ceiling fell from above on the heads and shoulders of the three men, and they were fiercely distinct in the half-light of the big court-room where the audience seemed composed of staring shadows. They wanted facts. Facts! They demanded Thesaurus attentive : (adj ) assiduous, diligent, heedful, watchful, observant, advertent, mindful, careful, aware, alert, respectful. ANTONYMS: ( adj) unfocused, negligent, neglectful, forgetful, heedless, unobservant, rude, unprepared, unconscious, uncaring, inconsiderate. enslaved : (adj ) captive, locked up, charmed, incarcerated, in bonda ge, in prison, bound, subject, beguiled, cringing; ( v) subjected. impassible : (adj ) impassive, dull, apathetic, rocky, bloodless, unmoved, impatible. nautical : (adj ) maritime, aquatic, oceangoing, yachting, naval, marine Shells, nautic; ( v) seafaring; ( n) sea, shipping. poignant: (adj, v ) acrid, biting, harsh, painful, penetrating, brisk; ( adj) acute, cutting, moving, affecting; ( adj, n) piquant. ANTONYMS: (adj) unemotional, cheerful, emotionless. presiding: ( adj) president, dominant, administrative. shaved : (adj ) shave, lacking hair, hairless, beardless, shiny on top, bald, smooth on top, whiskerless. ANTONYM: (adj) unshaven. spellbound : (adj ) fascinated, enchanted, mesmerized, captivated, charmed, bewitched, hypnotized, hypnotised, mesmerised, infatuated, enthralled. ANTONYM: ( adj) uninterested.

Lord J im 28 fact s from h im, a s if fact s could expl ain anyt hin g! 'After yo u h ad conclud ed you had collided with so mething flo ating awa sh, say a water -logged wrec k, you were or dered by your captain to g o forwar d an d ascert ain if there was an y damage done . Did you think it like ly fr om the force of the bl ow?' a sked the a ssessor si tting to the l eft. He ha d a thi n hor sesho e bea rd, salient cheek -bones, and w ith both elbows on the desk clasped his rugge d hand s before hi s f ace, loo king at Jim wit h thou ghtful blue eyes; the o ther, a he avy , scornfu l man, thrown back in his seat, his left arm extended full lengt h, drummed de lic ately with his finger -tips on a b lotti ng- pad: i n the mi ddl e the ma gistra te upri ght i n the roomy arm- chair , h is he ad incl ined slight ly on the shoulder, h ad his arms cr ossed on h is breast an d a few flowe rs in a glas s vase by the si de of hi s inksta nd. % 'I did not,' said Jim. 'I w as told to call no one and to m ake no noise for fear of crea ting a pani c. I thought the preca ution rea sona ble. I took one of the l amps that were hun g under the aw nings and w ent forw ard. After open ing the fo repeak hat ch I heard splash ing in there. I lowere d then the lamp the whole drift of its lan yard, and saw that the forep eak w as m ore t han hal f full of w ater alre ad y. I knew then th ere must be a big hole belo w the water -line.' He paus ed. 'Yes,' said the big assesso r, with a dream y sm ile at the bl otti ng- pad; hi s finge rs p layed inc essant ly, touchi ng the pa per wi thout noi se. 'I di d not thi nk of da nger just then. I m ight ha ve been a little sta rtled: al l thi s happened in such a quiet way and so v ery sudden ly. I knew ther e was no oth er bulkh ead in the ship but the coll ision b ulkhe ad sep arat ing t he for epeak from t he forehold. I went ba ck to te ll the ca pta in. I ca me upon the second engi neer getti ng up a t the f oot of the bri dge- ladder: he seemed daz ed, and tol d me he thought his left arm w as broken; he had slipped o n the top ste p when getting down wh ile I was forward. H e exclaimed, "My G od! T hat rotten b ulkhead'll g ive w ay in a minut e, an d t he damned t hing wi ll go down under us l ike a lum p of lea d." H e pushed m e away wit h his right arm and ra n before me up the ladd er, shoutin g as he climbed. H is left arm hung by his side. I followed up in time to see the captain rush at him and knock him down flat on hi s bac k. He did not strike him again: h e Thesaurus awash : (adj) overflo wing, ful l, flooded, big, replete, packed , brimming, crowded, co vered with wa ter. bulkhe ad: (n) isol ating curt ain, dissepiment, s eptum, divider, chine bulkhe ad, coff erdam, fire wall, after peak, bulkh ead rib; (v) bulkhe ad in. dreamy : (adj) far away, romanti c, impractic al, somn olent, vision ary, sleepy, pensive, mo ony, idealisti c, dro wsy; (v) balmy. ANTONY MS: (adj) cynic al, vigor ous, pra gmatic, practical, awake, alert, ordinary, pros aic. hor seshoe : (n) bow, arc, arch, carve, crescent, arcade, lo op, curve, br ake shoe, lunule, v ault. incess antly : (adv) constantly, endlessly, c ontinually, perpetually, continuously, un ceasing ly, eternally, persistently, unrem ittingly, unendingly, s teadily. ANTONY MS: (adv ) spor adic ally, briefly. lanyard : (n) cord, rope, line, haly ard. roomy : (adj, n) cap aciou s; (adj) broad, extensive, large, c ommodious, ample, volumin ous, expan sive, big, ran gy, comprehensiv e. A NTONY MS: ( adj) sma ll, n arrow, a irless, tiny, tight. scorn ful: (adj) disd ainful, haughty, arrog ant, sa rcas tic, disparaging, derisive, mocking, abusiv e, sc athing, opprobrio us, in sult ing. ANTONY MS: (adj) approvi ng, co mplimentary, humble, s ympa thetic, admiring. water-log ged: (adj) wet.

Joseph Conrad 29 stood bending over him and speaking angrily but quite low. I fancy he was asking him why the devil he didn't go and stop the engines, instead of making a row about it on deck. I heard him say, "Get up! Run! fly!" He swore also. The engineer slid down the starboard ladder and bolted round the skylight to the engine-room companion which was on the port side. He moaned as he ran. . . .' He spoke slowly; he remembered swiftly and with extreme vividness; he could have reproduced like an echo the moaning of the engineer for the better information of these men who wanted facts. After his first feeling of revolt he had come round to the view that only a meticulous precision of statement would bring out the true horror behind the appall ing face of things. The facts those men were so eager to know had been visible, tangible, open to the senses, occupying their place in space and time, requiring for their existence a fourteen-hundred- ton steamer and twenty-seven minutes by the watch; they made a whole that had features, shades of expression, a complic ated aspect that could be remembered by the eye, and something else besides, so mething invisible, a directing spirit of perdition that dwelt within, like a malevolent soul in a detestable body. He was anxious to make this clear. This had not been a common affair, everything in it had been of the utmost importance, and fortunately he remembered everything. He wanted to go on talking for truth's sake, perhaps for his own sake also; and while his utterance was deliberate, his mi nd positively flew round and round the serried circle of facts that had surged up all about him to cut him off from the rest of his kind: it was like a creature that, finding itself imprisoned within an enclosure of high stakes, dashes round and round, distracted in the night, trying to find a weak spot, a crevice, a place to scale, some opening through which it may squeeze itself and escape. This awful activity of mind made him hesitate at times in his speech. . . . % 'The captain kept on moving here and there on the bridge; he seemed calm enough, only he stumbled several times; and once as I stood speaking to him he walked right into me as though he had been stone-blind. He made no definite answer to what I had to tell. He mumbled to himself; all I heard of it were a few words that sounded like "confounded st eam!" and "infernal steam!"--something Thesaurus crevice: (n) cleft, break, chink, cranny, chap, fissure, interstice, rift, gap, hole, fracture. detestable : (adj ) hateful, abhorrent, damnable, odious, offensive, despicable, execrable, horrible, infamous; ( adj, v) cursed; ( adj, adv) atrocious. ANTONYMS: ( adj) admirable, adorable, sweet, loveable, lovable, likable, delightful, cherished, honorable, desirable, nice. dwelt : (v) dwell, inhabit. malevolent : (adj ) malicious, malign, hateful, bitter, malefic, nast y, spiteful, vicious, virulent, baleful, unkind. ANTONYMS: ( adj) kind, merciful, loving, good, benign. occupying : (n) commencement, employment, moving in, occupation.perdition : (adj, n ) downfall, fall, ruin; (n) hell, inferno, infernal region, nether region, deperdition, bane, destruction, overthrow. ANTONYM: (n) heaven. serried : (v) compact, close, dense, closely packed, thickset, teeming, swarming; ( adj) packed, serrated, crowded, populous. starboard : (n) dexter, offside; ( adj) proper, good, ripe, correct. ANTONYM: ( adj) port. vividness : (n) strength, colour, color, chroma, saturation, brightness, vividity, vivacity, brilliance, clarity, vibrancy. ANTONYMS: ( n) vagueness, weakness.

Lord J im 30 about stea m. I thought . . .' He was beco ming irrelevant; a question to the poi nt cut short his speech, like a p ang o f pain, an d he fe lt ext rem ely discour aged an d we ary. He was com ing to that, he was c oming t o that--and now, c hecked b rutally, he h ad t o answer b y ye s or no. H e answered truthfully by a curt 'Yes, I did'; and fair of face, big of frame, with young, gloomy eye s, he held his sh oulde rs upri ght above t he box while his soul wr ith ed within him. He w as m ade to answer another question so m uch to the point and so use less, then waited ag ain. His mouth was tastelessly dr y, as though he had been eatin g dust, then salt and b itter a s aft er a dr ink of se a-w ater. He wiped h is damp forehead, p assed his tongue over parch ed lip s, fe lt a shive r run down his back. The big assessor ha d dropped his eyelid s, and drummed o n without a sound, c areless an d mournful; the ey es of the ot her above t he sunburn t, clasped fin gers seemed to glow with kin dlin ess ; the ma gistra te ha d sway ed forw ard; h is p ale face hove red near the flowers, and t hen droppin g sideways over the arm of his chair, he rested his temple in the palm of his hand. The wind o f the punkah s eddied down on the head s, on the dark -faced n ative s wound a bout in vol umi nous dra peri es, on the Europea ns si tting together ver y hot and in dr ill suits t hat seemed t o fit them as clos e as t heir s kins , and hold ing their round pith hats on their knees; while glid ing along the wa lls the court peons, buttoned ti ght i n long whi te coa ts, flitted r apidly to and fro, r unning on bare toes, red -sashed , red turban on head, as no iseles s as ghosts, and on the alert like so many ret rievers .% Jim's eye s, w ander ing in t he intervals of his answe rs, re sted upon a wh ite man who sat apart from t he others, with his fac e w orn and clo uded, but wit h quiet eyes t hat glanced straight, inte rested and c lear. Jim answered anoth er questi on and wa s tempted to cry out, 'Wha t's the good of thi s! wha t's the good!' He ta pped with hi s foot sl ightl y, b it his lip, and l ooked a way over the hea ds. He met the eyes of the white man. The glance directed at him was n ot the fascin ated sta re of the others. It wa s an a ct of intell igent vol ition . Jim between two que stions for got himself s o far a s to find leis ure fo r a t hought . This fel low --r an the thought- -looks at me as though he co uld see some body or some thing past my Thesaurus gliding : (adj) slidin g, flying, slipping, labent, el usory; ( n) sailin g, soaring, flight, glissando; ( v) slither; ( adv ) glidingly. kindline ss: (n) frie ndliness, geni ality, amiability, grace, b enignanc y, mercy, tend erness, com passion, charity, consider ation, help fulne ss. ANTONY MS: ( n) indifference, reserve, cruelt y. noisel ess: (adj) quie t, silent, so undless, hush ed, voiceless, mute, ste althy, dumb, s oft, ca lm, tr anquil. ANTONY M: ( adj) heavy. parched: (adj, n ) thi rsty; ( adj) arid, adust, torrid, ba rren, des iccated, dehydra ted, s corched, b aked, withered, shriveled . ANTONY MS: (adj) quench ed, humid. pith : (n) essence, subst ance, kernel, mea ning, he art, cor e, nu cleus, ma tter, crux; ( adj, n ) gist, quintessenc e. sunbur nt: (adj) br own, b urnt, gloomy, fiery, sall ow, adust. tast elessly : (adv ) vulgarly, vapidly, tackily, fl atly, sho wily, loudly, tawdrily, cr udely, b landly, we akly, gaudily. AN TONY MS: ( adv ) tastef ully, f ashionably, suitably, decently. volition : (n, v ) will, testament; ( n) choice, option, sele ction, determination, con ation, preference, velleity, free will; ( v) purpose. writhed : (adj) crook ed, writhen, distorted, twisted.

Joseph Conrad 31 shoulder. He had come across that man before--in the street perhaps. He was positive he had never spoken to him. For days, for many days, he had spoken to no one, but had held silent, incoherent , and endless converse with himself, like a prisoner alone in his cell or like a wayfarer lost in a wilderness. At present he was answering questions that did not matter though they had a purpose, but he doubted whether he would ever again speak out as long as he lived. The sound of his own truthful statements confirme d his deliberate opinion that speech was of no use to him any longer. That man there seemed to be aware of his hopeless difficulty. Jim looked at him, then turned away resolutely, as after a final parting. % And later on, many times, in distant parts of the world, Marlow showed himself willing to remember Jim, to remember him at length, in detail and audibly. Perhaps it would be after dinner, on a verandah draped in motionless foliage and crowned with flowers, in the deep dusk speckled by fiery cigar-ends. The elongated bulk of each cane-chair harboured a silent listener. Now and then a small red glow would move abruptly, and expanding light up the fingers of a languid hand, part of a face in profound repose, or flash a crimson gleam into a pair of pensive eyes overshadowed by a fragment of an unruffled forehead; and with the very first word uttered Marlow's body, extended at rest in the seat, would become very still, as though his spirit had winged its way back into the lapse of time and were speaking through his lips from the past. Thesaurus audibly : (adv ) loudly, clearly, out loud. ANTONYMS: (adv ) imperceptibly, inaudibly, indistinctly, silently. incoherent: (adj ) disjointed, disconnected, delirious, rambling, confused, disordered, incompatible, wandering, muddled, inconsistent, contradictory. ANTONYMS: ( adj) clear, articulate, eloquent, intelligible, lucid, sound, concise, consistent. pensive : (adj ) contemplative, meditative, musing, wistful, dreamy, melancholy, abstracted, broody, reflective, moody; ( adj, v) sad. ANTONYMS: ( adj) shallow, satisfied, carefree. speckled : (adj ) dotted, mottled, piebald, specked, spotty, freckled, spotted, multicolored, flecked, brindled, blotchy. ANTONYM: ( adj) limited. unruffled: ( adj) still, tranquil, composed, quiet, serene, cool, peaceful, placid, collected, sedate; (adj, v ) undisturbed. ANTONYMS: (adj) agitated, bothered, disturbed, excitable, excited, fiery, frivolous, perturbed, scatterbrained, anxious. wayfarer : (n) traveler, passenger, pilgrim, itinerant, wanderer, traveller, walker, journeyer, rambler, voyager, vagrant. winged : (adj ) swift, rapid, speedy, quick, flying, alate, sublime, lofty, alated, aligerous, composed.



Joseph Conrad 33 CHAPTER %5 'Oh yes. I attended the inquiry,' he would say, 'and to this day I haven't left off wondering why I went. I am willing to believe each of us has a guardian angel, if you fellows will concede to me that each of us has a familiar devil as well. I want you to own up, because I don't like to feel exceptional in any way, and I know I have him-- the devil, I mean. I haven't seen him, of course, but I go upon circumstantial evidence. He is there right enough, and, being malicious, he lets me in for that kind of thing. What kind of thing, you ask? Why, the inquiry thing, the yellow-dog thing--you wouldn't think a mangy, native tyke would be allowed to trip up people in the verandah of a magistrate's court, would you?-- the kind of thing that by devious, unexpected, truly diabolical ways causes me to run up against men with soft spots, with hard spots, with hidden plague spots, by Jove! and loosens their tongues at the sight of me for their infernal confidences; as though, forsooth, I had no confidences to make to myself, as though--God help me!--I didn't have enough confidential information about myself to harrow my own soul till the end of my appointed time. And what I have done to be thus favoured I want to know. I declare I am as full of my own concerns as the next man, and I have as much memory as the average pilgrim in this valley, so you see I am not particularly fit to be a receptacle of confessions. Then why? Can't tell--unless it be to make time pass away after dinner. Charley, my dear chap, your dinner was extremely good, and in consequence these men here look upon a quiet rubber as a tumultuous occupation. They wallow in your Thesaurus circumstantial : (adj ) particular, detailed, incidental, thorough, presumptive, precise, coincidental, elaborate, exact, special, specific. ANTONYM: ( adj) concrete. diabolical : (adj ) diabolic, demoniac, demonic, infernal, hellish, unholy, fiendish, wicked, satanic, atrocious, evil. forsooth : (adv ) really, actually, certainly, indeed, in truth, truly, by right; ( adj) in fact, joking apart; ( int) quotha. infernal : (adj ) devilish, fiendish, diabolical, demonic, damned, cursed, blasted, unholy, wicked; ( adj, v) diabolic, satanic. mangy: ( adj) shabby, seedy, scruffy, scabby, squalid, paltry; ( v) contaminated, tainted, peccant, vitiated, poisoned. receptacle: ( n) box, holder, case, torus, can, outlet, pocket, pyx, beehive, cuspidor, pix. tumultuous: (adj, n ) boisterous, tempestuous; ( adj) disorderly, riotous, turbulent, noisy, furious, loud, troubled, disturbed; ( adj, v) tumultuary. ANTONYMS: ( adj) peaceful, calm. tyke : (n) churl, tike, tot, kid, imp, serf, pickaninny, kern, bairn, bambino, peasant. wallow : (v) roll, flounder, welter, triumph, enjoy, rejoice, splash, bask; (adj ) luxuriate, crouch, slouch.

Lord J im 34 good cha irs and thi nk to themsel ves, "H ang exerti on. Let tha t Ma rlow ta lk." 'Tal k? So be it. And it's eas y enou gh to talk of M aster Jim, after a g ood spre ad, two hundred feet above t he se a-level, with a box of d ecent cigars handy, on a blesse d evening of freshne ss and starlig ht that w ould m ake the best of us forget we are on ly o n suffer anc e here a nd got to pi ck our wa y i n cross lights, wa tchi ng every precio us minute an d every irr emediab le step, trusti ng we sha ll ma nage yet to go out decentl y in the end- -but not so sure of it after all--and w ith dashed little hel p to expect f rom those we touch el bows wi th ri ght a nd lef t. Of course there are men here and there to whom the whole of life is like an after -din ner hour with a cigar; easy, p leasant, empty, perh aps enl ive ne d by some fa ble of stri fe to be f orgotten bef ore the end is told--bef ore the end is told- -even if there happens to b e any end to it. % 'My eyes met hi s f or the f irst ti me at tha t inquiry. You must know tha t everybody co nnected in an y way with the sea was there, bec ause the affair h ad been notorious for d ays, ever since th at mysterio us cable me ssage c ame fro m Aden to sta rt us al l ca ckli ng. I say my sterio us, be cau se it w as so in a sen se though it con tained a nake d f act, ab out as na ked and ug ly as a fact can well be. The whol e wa tersi de tal ked of nothi ng else. First thing i n the morni ng as I was dressing in my state-roo m, I would hear through the bulkhe ad my Parsee Dubash jabbe ring about the Patna w ith the steward, w hile he drank a cup of tea, by favour, in the pantry. No sooner o n shore I would meet so me acquaintance, and t he fir st rem ark wou ld be, "Did you ev er hear of anyt hing t o beat this?" and accord ing t o his k ind t he man wou ld s mile cyn ically, or loo k sad, or let out a swear or two. Complete str anger s wou ld accos t each othe r familiar ly, ju st for the sake of easing their m inds on the subje ct: every con found ed l oafer in the town came in for a harvest of drinks over t his affair: you heard of it in the harbou r office, at eve ry sh ip-broke r's, at your ag ent 's, from whit es, from nat ive s, fro m ha lf-castes, f rom the very boa tmen squa tting hal f na ked on the stone steps as you went up--by Jove! There was some indign ation, no t a few jokes, and no end of discussions as to w hat had become of them, you know. This w ent on for a couple of weeks or more, and the opinion that wh atever was my sterio us in this affair Thesaurus accos t: (v) hail, gree t, solicit, salute, approach, call, b uttonhole, we lcome, speak, greeting, spe ak to. ANTONY MS: ( v) avo id, do dge, s hun. conf ounde d: (adj) bemused, accursed, execrable, baf fled, cursed, bef uddled, confused, puzzl ed, a ghast, perplexed; (adj, v ) ab ash ed. enliven ed: (adj) bo uncy, active, spirited, alive, bo uncing. famili arly: (adv ) int imately, usually, ordinarily, nearl y, freque ntly, commonly, reg ularl y, informally, closely, ac quaintedl y, convention ally. ANTONY M: ( adv) distantly. irrem ediable : (adj) incur able, irrecoverable, irretrieva ble, irrevocable, hopele ss, irredeemable, irreclaim able, reme diless, bey ond repair, desperate, c ureless. ANTONY MS: ( adj) remediable, superfi cial, tempor ary. jabber ing: (adj) babbling, blithering, blatherin g, loquaci ous, voluble, gab by; (n) jabber, g abble, b abble, gibberi sh. loaf er: (n) dawdler, idler, bum, layabout, lo unger, l oon, shirker, slac ker , tramp, dallier, blackg uard. starlight : (n) rushli ght, moonlight, firelight, candleligh t. sufferance: (n) all owan ce, patienc e, permissio n, forbe arance, le ave, toleration, suf ferin g, resignati on, accept ance; ( n, v ) to lerance; ( adj, v) support ance.

Joseph Conrad 35 would turn out to be tragic as well, began to prevail, when one fine morning, as I was standing in the shade by the steps of the harbour office, I perceived four men walking towards me along the quay. I wondered for a while where that queer lot had sprung from, and suddenly, I may say, I shouted to myself, "Here they are!" % 'There they were, sure enough, three of them as large as life, and one much larger of girth than any living man has a right to be, just landed with a good breakfast inside of them from an outward-bound Dale Line steamer that had come in about an hour after sunrise. Th ere could be no mistake; I spotted the jolly skipper of the Patna at the first glance: the fattest man in the whole blessed tropical belt clear round that good old ea rth of ours. Moreover, nine months or so before, I had come across him in Samarang. His steamer was loading in the Roads, and he was abusing the tyrannical institutions of the German empire, and soaking himself in beer all day long and day after day in De Jongh's back-shop, till De Jongh, who charged a guilder for every bottle without as much as the quiver of an eyelid, would beckon me aside, and, with his little leathery face all puckered up, declare confidentially, "Business is business, but this man, captain, he make me very sick. Tfui!" 'I was looking at him from the shade. He was hurrying on a little in advance, and the sunlight beating on him brought out his bulk in a startling way. He made me think of a trained baby elepha nt walking on hind-legs. He was extravagantly gorgeous too--got up in a soiled sleeping-suit, bright green and deep orange vertical stripes, with a pair of ragged straw slippers on his bare feet, and somebody's cast-off pith hat, very dirty and two sizes too small for him, tied up with a manilla rope-yarn on the top of his big head. You understand a man like that hasn't the ghost of a chance when it comes to borrowing clothes. Very well. On he came in hot haste, without a look right or left, passed within three feet of me, and in the innocence of his heart went on pelting upstairs into the harbour office to make his deposition, or report, or whatever you like to call it. 'It appears he addressed himself in the first instance to the principal shipping-master. Archie Ruthvel had just come in, and, as his story goes, was Thesaurus beckon : (n, v ) attract; ( v) signal, summon, call, motion, sign, invite, gesture, nod, brandish, lure. ANTONYM: ( v) repel. extravagantly : (adv ) excessively, immoderately, inordinately, luxuriously, prodigally, wastefully, profligately, profusely, ostentatiously, improvidently, unrestrainedly. ANTONYMS: ( adv) economically, stingily, reasonably, meagerly, cheaply, modestly, humbly. girth : (n) width, belt, circumference, fatness, bellyband; (n, v ) cinch; (v) begird, girdle, gird, encircle, enclose. guilder : (n) florin, Dutch florin. leathery : (adj ) stringy, coriaceous, leatherlike, gristly cartilaginous, leathered, tough as whitleather, hard, stiff, gristly, gnarled, rugged. manilla : (adj, n ) Manila; ( n) Manila paper, manilla paper, capital of the Philippines. pelting: (n) successiveness, chronological sequence, chronological succession, hail, rain. puckered : (adj ) corrugated, wrinkly, unsmooth, rough, inflated, furrowed, cockled, bullate, creased. tyrannical : (adj ) domineering, autocratic, despotic, dictatorial, overbearing, authoritarian, tyrannous, cruel, peremptory, tyrannic, lordly. ANTONYMS: ( adj) liberal, libertarian.

Lord J im 36 about to begin his arduo us day by giving a dressin g-down to his chief clerk. Some of you might have known him--an ob ligin g little Portuguese hal f-caste wi th a mi serabl y ski nny neck, a nd always on the hop to get some thi ng f rom the shipmasters in the way of eatables --a piece of salt po rk, a b ag o f biscuits , a few pota toes, or wha t not. On e voya ge, I recollect, I tipped him a live sheep out of the remnant of my se a-sto ck: not that I want ed him to do anything for me--h e couldn 't, yo u know- -but becau se hi s child like be lie f in t he sacred right to pe rqui site s quite touche d my heart. It was so stron g as to be almost beautiful. The race --the two races rat her--and the clim ate . . . H owever, neve r mind. I kno w where I h ave a frien d fo r life. % 'Wel l, Rut hve l s ays he w as giving him a severe lectur e--on o fficial moral ity, I suppose--wh en he heard a kind of subdue d com motion at his b ack, and t urnin g his he ad he s aw, in h is ow n words, som ething round and enormo us, re semblin g a sixteen-h un dred-we ight sug ar-hogshe ad wr apped in str iped flanne lette, u p- ended in the middle o f the larg e floo r space in the office . He dec lares he was so taken ab ack t hat for qu ite an ap preci able t ime he did not re alise the t hing wa s alive, and s at st ill wonder ing for what pu rpose and by what means t hat object ha d been transported i n front of hi s de sk. The arch way from the ante-room w as crowded wit h punkah-p ullers, sweeper s, police peon s, the coxsw ain and crew of the harbour steam- launch , al l cr aning their necks and almo st climbing on each other's ba cks. Qui te a ri ot. By tha t time the f ellow had ma naged t o tug a nd jerk his hat c lear of his head, and adv anced with slight bows at Ruthvel, w ho told me the si ght wa s so di scomposi ng tha t for some ti me he l istened, qui te una ble to ma ke out wha t tha t ap par itio n wanted . It spoke in a voice harsh and lug ubriou s but intr ep id, a nd li ttle by l ittle i t da wned upon Archi e tha t thi s was a devel opment of the Patna case. H e says that as soon as he understood w ho it w as before him h e felt qu ite u nwell --Archie is so symp athet ic and easily upset --but pul led hi mself together a nd shouted "St op! I ca n't li sten to you. You must go to the Ma ster At tenda nt. I ca n't possi bly listen to you. Capta in El liot i s the ma n you want to see. This w ay, this w ay." H e jumped up, ran round that long counter, pulle d, shove d: the other let him, surpr ised but obedient a t first, and onl y at the door of the private office some sort of animal instinct m ade him hang back and Thesaurus apparition : (n) gho st, pha ntom, spirit, spectre, hall ucin ation, spook, shade, eidolon, w raith, a dvent; ( n, v ) visi on. biscuits : (n) biscuit, cracker; ( adj) cracker s. coxsw ain: (n) pilot, wheelm an, cockswain, helmsm an, steer sman, steerer; ( v) guide. dressing-down : (n) lectu re, s ermo n. flann elette : (n) text ile, material, cl oth, fabric, wincey ette. intrepid : (adj) daring, fearless, bold, brave, dauntle ss, g allant, aud acious, hardy, a dvent urous, heroic, confident. ANT ONYMS: ( adj) fearful, timid, cautio us, fee ble. lugubr ious : (adj) dis mal, glo omy, doleful, dark, f uner eal, melan choly, grievous, som ber, doloro us, plaintive, miser able. ANTONY M: (adj) cheerf ul. obliging : (adj, v ) co mplaisant, courteo us; (adj) ami able, aff able, gentle, kind, good, benign, pleasa nt, gra cious, complia nt. ANTONY MS: (adj) un cooper ative, unkind, contrar y, reticent. perquisite s: (n) frin ge benefit. recollect: (v) recall, remember, recogni ze, ca ll to m ind, remind, mind, think, call up , reminisce, refresh, retrieve. A NTONY M: ( v) forget. remn ant: (n) end, relic, remain s, residue, fr agment, l eftover, su rviva l, trace, oddment, bal ance, st ub.

Joseph Conrad 37 snort like a frightened bullock. "Look here! what's up? Let go! Look here!" Archie flung open the door without knocking. "The master of the Patna, sir," he shouts . "Go in, captain." He saw the old man lift his head from some writing so sharp that his nose-nippers fell off, banged the door to, and fled to his desk, where he had some papers waiting for his signature: but he says the row that burst out in there was so awful that he co uldn't collect his senses sufficiently to remember the spelling of his own name. Archie's the most sensitive shipping- master in the two hemispheres. He declar es he felt as though he had thrown a man to a hungry lion. No doubt the noise was great. I heard it down below, and I have every reason to believe it was heard clear across the Esplanade as far as the band-stand. Old father Elliot had a great stock of words and could shout--and didn't mind who he shouted at either. He would have shouted at the Viceroy himself. As he used to tell me: "I am as high as I can get; my pension is safe. I've a few pounds laid by, and if they don't like my notions of duty I would just as soon go home as not. I am an old man, and I have always spoken my mind. All I care for now is to see my girls married before I die." He was a little crazy on that point. His three daughters were awfully nice, though they resembled him amazingly, and on the mornings he woke up with a gloomy view of their matrimonial prospects the office would read it in his eye and tremble, because, they said, he was sure to have somebody for breakfast. However, that morning he did not eat the renegade, but, if I may be allowed to carry on the metaphor, chewed him up very small, so to speak, and--ah! ejected him again. % 'Thus in a very few moments I saw his monstrous bulk descend in haste and stand still on the outer steps. He had stopped close to me for the purpose of profound meditation: his la rge purple cheeks quivered. He was biting his thumb, and after a while noticed me with a sidelong vexed look. The other three chaps that had landed with him made a little group waiting at some distance. There was a sallow-faced, mean little chap with his arm in a sling, and a long individual in a blue flannel coat, as dry as a chip and no stouter than a broomstick , with drooping grey moustaches, who looked about him with an air Thesaurus broomstick : (adj ) spare, mea ger, lank y, slight; ( n) broomstaff, broom handle. bullock : (n) ox, steer, kine, cows, oxen, cattle. chaps : (n) chops, fauces, crack. drooping : (adj ) flabby, pendulous, limp, flaccid, cernuous, flagging, languid, floppy, lax, tired; ( n) droop. ANTONYMS: (adj) taut, firm. ejected : (adj ) evicted, dispossessed. flannel : (n) washcloth, cloth, face cloth, pants, trousers, flannelette, white, tweed, gabardine; ( v) blanket, fur. shouts: ( n) cries. sidelong : (adj ) indirect, oblique, side, asquint, askance, askant; ( adv) sideways, obliquely, askew, aslant, sideling. ANTONYM: ( adj) direct. sling: ( v) pitch, fling, hurl, dangle, chuck, toss, throw, heave; ( adj) hang; (adj, v ) suspend; ( n, v) cast. snort: ( v) snore, huff, inhale; ( n, v) snicker, hoot, chuckle, sneer; ( n) bird, Bronx cheer, boo, razzing. ANTONYM: (v) exhale. tremble : (adj, n, v ) shiver; ( n, v) quiver, shudder, thrill, palpitate; ( adj, v) totter, quake; ( n) throb; (v) flutter, quail, falter. ANTONYMS: ( v) steady, calm. vexed : (adj ) troubled, irritated, angry, pestered, peeved, harassed, sore, harried, uneasy, cross, offended. ANTONYMS: ( adj) calm, uncomplicated.

Lord J im 38 of %jaunty imbeci lity. T he third was an upstand ing , broad -sh ouldered yo uth, with his h and s in h is poc kets, turnin g his back on the other two who appeared to be talk ing t ogether earn estly. He st ared acro ss t he em pty Esp lanad e. A ramsh ackle gharry , all dus t and ve ne tia n bli nds, pul led u p short oppos ite the grou p, a nd the driver, throwi ng up his r ight foot ov er his knee, gave h imself up to the crit ica l examin ation of his t oes. The young c hap, ma kin g no movement , not even stirring his head, just star ed int o the sunsh ine. This w as m y first view o f Jim. He look ed as unconc erne d and un appro achable as on ly t he y oung c an loo k. There he stood, clean-limb ed, clean-fac ed, firm on hi s feet , as p rom isin g a b oy as the sun ever shone on; and, look ing at him, knowing all he kn ew and a little more too, I wa s as a ngry a s though I ha d detected him tryi ng to get somethi ng out of me by false pretences. He had no busine ss to look so sound . I thought to myself--well, if this sort can go w rong like that . . . and I felt as though I could flin g down my hat and dance on it fr om sheer mortif ica tion, as I once saw the skip per o f an Itali an ba rque do because his duff er of a ma te got i nto a mess wi th his anchor s when mak ing a fly ing m oor in a roadstead full o f sh ips. I ask ed mysel f, see ing him t here apparent ly so much at ease --is he si lly? is he callo us? H e seemed read y to st art wh istling a tune. And note, I did not care a ra p about t he beha viour of the other t wo. Thei r persons somehow f itted the ta le tha t wa s public property, a nd w as going to be the su bject of an offic ial inq uiry . "That old mad rog ue u pstair s ca lled m e a hound, " sa id t he cap tain of t he Pa tna . I ca n't tel l whether he r ecognised me --I r ather thin k he did; b ut at any rate ou r gl ances m et. He gl ared --I smile d; houn d was t he ve ry mild est epi thet that had re ached me through t he open windo w. "Did he? " I sai d from s ome st range inabi lity t o hold my tongue. He nodded, b it his thumb agai n, swore under his breath: then lifting his head and looking at me wit h sull en and passionate impudence--"Bah! the Pac ific is bi g, my friendt . You damned Englishmen can do your worst; I know where there's plenty room for a man like me: I am well aguaind t in Apia, in Honolu lu, in . . ." He pau sed refl ectivel y, while w ithout effort I could dep ict to myself the sort of peop le h e was " aguaind t" wi th in those pla ces. I won't m ake a secret of it that I had been "ag uaindt" wi th not a few of tha t sort myself . There are times when a man m ust act as though life wer e equally sweet in any comp any . Thesaurus barque : (n) ship, he rmaphrodite brig, brig, sno w, sailb oat. duffer: (n) dun ce, lub ber, block head, stick, b ungler, fat head, marplot, fence, fum bler, rece iver of stolen goods, du dder. epithet: (n) name, c ognomen, appellati on, denom ination, nickna me, mon iker, sobri quet, title, pictu re, byn ame, byw ord. gharry : (n) equip age. imbecili ty: (n) folly , foolishne ss, idiocy, fat uity, we akness, stupidity, feeblemindedne ss, l unacy; ( adj, n ) debility, feeblene ss; (adj) infirmity. morti fication : (n) chagrin, embarr assment, sh ame, gangr ene, disappointment, di sgrace, corru ptio n, necrosis, degradation; (adj, n ) vexa tion; ( adj) griev ance. una ppr oachable: (adj) alo of, distant, remote, interminab le, unreachable, immeasur able, inc alcul able, inexhaustib le, illimi table, innumer able, o ut of rea ch. ANTONY MS: ( adj) acce ssible, friendly, easy, affable. upsta nding : (adj) upright, erect, honorable, worthy, noble, mor al, principled, honest, straightf orward, respectable, decent. ANTONY MS: (adj) disrep utable, c orrupted, degenerate, immor al, prone. whistling : (n) whi stle, sound, tin whistl e, musi c, pennywhi stle, sign, signal, sign aling.

Joseph Conrad 39 I've known such a time, and, what's more, I shan't now pretend to pull a long face over my necessity, because a good many of that bad company from want of moral--moral--what shall I say?--posture, or from some other equally profound cause, were twice as instructive and twenty times more amusing than the usual respectable thief of commerce you fellows ask to sit at your table without any real necessity--from habit, from cowardice, from good-nature, from a hundred sneaking and inadequate reasons. % ' "You Englishmen are all rogues," went on my patriotic Flensborg or Stettin Australian. I really don't recollect now what decent little port on the shores of the Baltic was defiled by being the nest of that precious bird. "What are you to shout? Eh? You tell me? You no better than other people, and that old rogue he make Gottam fuss with me." His thick carcas s trembled on its legs that were like a pair of pillars; it trembled from head to foot. "That's what you English always make--make a tam' fuss--for any little thing, because I was not born in your tam' country. Take away my certificate. Take it. I don't want the certificate. A man like me don't want your verfluchte certificate. I shpit on it." He spat. "I vill an Amerigan citizen begome," he cried, fretting and fuming and shuffling his feet as if to free his ankles from some invi sible and mysterious grasp that would not let him get away from that spot. He made himself so warm that the top of his bullet head positively smoked. Nothing mysterious prevented me from going away: curiosity is the most obvious of sentiments, and it held me there to see the effect of a full information upon that young fellow who, hands in pockets, and turning his back upon the sidewalk, gazed across the grass-plots of the Esplanade at the yellow portico of the Malabar Hotel with the air of a man about to go for a walk as soon as his friend is ready. That's how he looked, and it was odious. I waited to see him overwhelmed, confounded, pierced through and through, squirming like an impaled beetle--and I was half afraid to see it too--if you understand what I mean. Nothing more awful than to watch a man who has been found out, not in a crime but in a more than criminal weakness. The commonest sort of fortitude prevents us from becoming criminals in a legal sense; it is from weakness unknown, but perhaps suspected, as in some parts of the world you suspect a deadly snake in every bush--from weakness that may lie Thesaurus cowardice: (n) dastardliness, poltroonery, pusillanimity, fear, spirit, cravenness, timidity, fearfulness, base fear, cowardship. ANTONYMS: ( n) nerve, bravery, daring, determination. defiled: (adj ) impure, polluted, dirty, maculate, debauched, contaminated, corrupt, violated, tainted, abusive, adulterate. ANTONYMS: ( adj) hallowed, purified, sanctified, cleansed, untarnished. fortitude: ( n) bravery, endurance, grit, pluck, backbone, determination, tenacity, firmness, strength; ( adj, n) guts, spunk. ANTONYMS: ( n) cowardice, frailty, impatience. fretting: (adj ) irritable, dissatisfied, peevish; ( n) festering, friction, exulceration. fuming: (adj ) enraged, incensed, boiling, irate, livid, mad, furious, violent; ( v) wild, raving, ready to burst. ANTONYM: ( adj) pleased. sentiments: ( n) breast. sidewalk: (n) footpath, path, walk, footway, flags, trottoir, pathway, causeway, walkway, curbside, doorstep. sneaking : (adj ) hangdog, furtive, contemptible, abject, clandestine, confidential, dirty, shabby; ( n) creeping, crawling; (adj, n) sneaky. squirming : (adj ) wiggling, sinuate, moving, sinuous, twisting, writhing, wiggly, wriggly.

Lord J im 40 hidden, w atched or unw atched, %pra yed agai nst or manfu lly scorned, repressed or maybe ign ored more than half a lifetime, not one of us is safe. We are snare d int o doing things for wh ich we get called name s, an d t hings for which we g et hanged, and yet the spirit may well surv ive--surv ive the condemnation, survive the halter , by Jove! And there are thin gs--the y look small enough sometimes to o- -by whi ch some of us are tota lly and compl etel y undone. I wa tched the young ster there. I l iked his ap pearance ; I knew hi s ap pearan ce; he cam e from the right place; h e was one of us. He stood there for all t he parentage of his k ind, for men and women by no means clever or amusin g, but whose v ery existence is based upon honest faith, and upon the instinct of courage. I don't mean m ilitary courage, or civil courage, or any special kind of courage. I m ean just that inbor n ability to l ook tempta tions strai ght in the f ace- -a rea diness unin tellectual enough, goodness know s, but without pose-- a p ower of res istan ce, don't you see, ungr acious if you like , but priceles s--an unt hinking and blessed st iffness befo re the outwa rd and inwa rd t errors, bef ore the mi ght of na ture a nd the seducti ve corrupt ion of men--bac ked by a fa ith invuln erabl e to the strength of facts, to the contag ion of example , to t he soli cita tion of ide as. H ang ide as! Th ey are tramp s, vagabon ds, knocking at the back-door of your mind , each t akin g a little of your subst anc e, ea ch carry ing a way some cr umb of t hat belie f in a few simple not ion s you m ust clin g to if yo u w ant to live dec ently and wo uld like to die easy! 'Thi s has nothi ng to do wi th J im, di rect ly; onl y he was outwa rdly so typi cal of that good, stupid kind w e like to feel marching right and left of us in life, of the kind tha t is not di sturbed by the va ga ries of intel ligence a nd the p erversi ons of -- of nerves, l et us say. He wa s the ki nd of fe llow yo u would , on the strength o f his looks, leave in charge of t he deck--figur atively and profession ally speakin g. I say I would, and I ought to k now. Haven 't I turned out youngsters enough i n my time, f or the servi ce of the R ed Rag, to the cra ft of the sea , to the cra ft whose whole sec ret could be exp ressed in one short senten ce, an d yet must be dr iven afr esh every day into young heads till it becomes the component part of every wakin g thou ght --till it is p resent in ever y dream o f their yo ung s leep! The sea h as been good to me, but whe n I remembe r all these boys tha t pa ssed through my hands, some grown up no w and some drow ned by this t ime, but all good stuff Thesaurus contagion : (n) plague, con tagio us disease, ta int, tra nsmissi on, con tamination, disease, conduction, pes t, corru ption, pollu tion, grippe. halter : (n) gibbet, re in, bridle, gallo ws, rope, noos e, ce stus, colla r, drop; ( v) confine, cr amp. inbor n: (adj) na tive, born, conn atural, conna te, c ongenit al, heredita ry, inherent, constit utiona l, indigeno us, natur al, instin ctive. ANTONY MS: (adj) acquired, spiri tual. invulnerable : (adj) impregnable, impervious, impenetrable, safe, inviolable, un assail able, secure, indomitabl e, unto uchabl e, woundless; ( adj, v ) defensible. ANTONY M: ( adj) receptive. manfully : (adv ) gallantly, br avely, manlikely, virilely, mightily, masc ulinel y, cour ageously, vali antly, doughtily, intrepidl y. ANTONY M: (adv ) unm anfully. solicit ation : (n) pet ition, a ppea l, importunity, invit ation, entreaty, allurem ent, request , prayer, instan ce, dema nd; ( n, v ) post ulati on. ungr acious : (adj) disco urteo us, impolite, uncivil, surly, unkind, unceremo nious, ch urlish, disrespectf ul, un friendly, gracele ss, unpleasing. uninte llectua l: (adj) unthinking, unreasoni ng, vac ant, unintelligent, unideal, tho ughtle ss, dull, ignor ant, inconsider ate.

Joseph Conrad 41 for the sea, I don't think I have done badly by it either. Were I to go home to- morrow, I bet that before two days pass ed over my head some sunburnt young chief mate would overtake me at some dock gateway or other, and a fresh deep voice speaking above my hat would ask: "Don't you remember me, sir? Why! little So-and-so. Such and such a ship. It was my first voyage." And I would remember a bewildered little shaver, no higher than the back of this chair, with a mother and perhaps a big sister on the quay, very quiet but too upset to wave their handkerchiefs at the ship that glid es out gently between the pier-heads; or perhaps some decent middle-aged father who had come early with his boy to see him off, and stays all the morning, because he is interested in the windlass apparently, and stays too long, and has got to scramble ashore at last with no time at all to say good-bye. The mud pilot on the poop sings out to me in a drawl , "Hold her with the check line for a moment, Mister Mate. There's a gentleman wants to get ashore. . . . Up with you, sir. Nearly got carried off to Talcahuano, didn't you? Now's your time; ea sy does it. . . . All right. Slack away again forward there." The tugs, smoking like the pit of perdition, get hold and churn the old river into fury; the gentleman ashore is dusting his knees--the benevolent steward has shied his umbrella after him. All very proper. He has offered his bit of sacrifice to the sea, and now he may go home pretending he thinks nothing of it; and the little willing victim shall be very sea-sick before next morning. By-and-by, when he has learned all the little mysteries and the one great secret of the craft, he shall be fit to live or die as the sea may decree; and the man who had taken a hand in this fool game, in which the sea wins every toss, will be pleased to have his back slapped by a heavy young hand, and to hear a cheery sea-puppy voice: "Do you remember me, sir? The little So-and-so." % 'I tell you this is good; it tells you that once in your life at least you had gone the right way to work. I have been thus slapped, and I have winced, for the slap was heavy, and I have glowed all day long and gone to bed feeling less lonely in the world by virtue of that hearty thump. Don't I remember the little So-and-so's! I tell you I ought to know the right kind of looks. I would have trusted the deck to that youngster on the strength of a single glance, and gone to sleep with both eyes--and, by Jove! it wouldn't have been safe. There are depths of horror in that Thesaurus cheery: (adj ) bright, joyful, jovial, buoyant, sunny, gay, genial, glad, upbeat, vivacious, blithe. ANTONYMS: ( adj) sad, depressing, miserable, funereal, unwelcoming, unfriendly, serious, dull, downbeat, down, troubled. churn: ( v) seethe, agitate, toss, bubble, eddy, whirl, roil, shake, stir, buffet; (n) butter churn. drawl : (adv ) creep, loiter, linger, saunter; ( adj) dawdle, slouch, hang back, droil; ( v) mouth, pronounce, enounce. ANTONYMS: ( v) contract, shorten, abridge. dusting : (n) sprinkling, dry spraying, film, coating. hearty : (adj ) heartfelt, healthy, genial, sturdy, cheering, fervent, wholehearted, lusty, enthusiastic, convivial; ( adj, n) well. ANTONYMS: (adj) unhealthy, frail, old, weak, sluggish, unwholesome, meager. poop : (n) ninny, stern, nincompoop, feces, quarter, dope, dirt, inside information, after part; ( n, v) shit; ( v) fatigue. shaver : (n) child, boy, lad, razor, nipper, urchin, kiddy, orphan, bambino, electric shaver, electric razor. slapped : (adj ) mistreated. windlass : (n) capstan, anchor windlass, hoist, pulley, lifting device, stowce, wince, windas; ( v) crane, derrick.

Lord J im 42 thought. He looked as gen uine as a ne w sovereign , but there was some in fern al alloy in h is met al. How much? The least thing--the le ast drop of somet hing rare and accurs ed ; the l east drop!- -but he ma de you-- standi ng there wi th hi s don't- care -han g air --he m ade yo u wonder w hether perch anc e he were nothing more rare than br ass. % 'I couldn't believe it. I te ll you I w anted to see him squirm for the honour of the craf t. The other two no -account cha ps spotted thei r ca ptai n, and be ga n to move sl owl y towa rds us. They cha tted together a s they strol led, and I di d not care a ny more tha n if they ha d not been visib le to the naked e ye. T hey grinne d at each other--might have been exchanging jo kes, fo r all I know. I saw that with one of them it w as a case of a broken arm; and as to the long individual w ith grey mousta ches he wa s the chi ef engi neer, a nd i n va rious wa ys a pretty notori ous personality. They were nobodies. They a pproa ched. The skipp er gaz ed in an inan imate w ay between his feet: he seem ed to be swoll en to a n unna tura l siz e by some awful dise ase , by the mysteriou s ac tion of an unknown poison. He lifted his head, saw the two before h im wa iting, ope ned hi s mo uth wit h an extraord inar y, sneer ing contor tion of his puf fed face --to spe ak t o them, I suppose- -and then a thought seemed to stri ke hi m. Hi s thi ck, purp lish lips ca me together wi thout a sound, he went off in a resol ute wa ddl e to the gha rry and bega n to jerk a t the door-ha ndle wi th such a blind bruta lity of impa tience tha t I expected to see the whole concern overturned on its side , pony and all. The driver, shaken out of his m editation over th e sole of h is foot, displayed at once all the si gns of intense terror, a nd hel d wi th both hands, lookin g ro un d from his bo x at this v ast ca rcas s forc ing its wa y int o his convey an ce. The l ittle machine sho ok and roc ked tumultu ousl y, and the crimson nape of that lowe red neck, the size of those stra ining thi ghs, the i mmense hea ving o f that dingy, strip ed green-and - orange bac k, the whole burrowing ef for t of that gaudy and sord id mass , trouble d one's sen se o f probability with a droll and fea rsome effect , like one of t hose grotesque an d distinct visions that sc are an d fasc inate one in a fever. He disappear ed. I half expecte d the roof to spl it in two, the l ittle box on wheel s to burst open in the manner of a ripe cott on -pod--but it only sank with a c lic k of flattened springs, and su ddenly one ve ne tian blind rattled down. His sho ulders Thesaurus accur sed: (adj) exec rable, abomin able, detestable, ac cur st, hatef ul, damned, damnable, maledict , blasted; ( v) atrocious, stranded. began: (v) Gan. contortion : (n) tor sion, deformation, twist, dislocati on, perversion, distor t, deformity, contort, garble, wrench, twisting. AN TONY M: ( n) smile. droll: (adj) comic al, humoro us, funny, laug hable, b urles que, ludicrous, ridicu lous; (adj, n) comic, witty; ( n) buffoon, clo wn. A NTONY MS: ( adj) dramatic, dull, gr ave, tragic, solem n. fascinate: (adj, n, v) charm; ( n, v ) allure, en chant, enti ce; ( adj, v ) attra ct; (v) be witch, enthr all, enrapture, enthral, entran ce, c apture. ANTONY MS: ( v) bore, tire, repel, disench ant, disinter est, appall. no-a ccount : (adj) worthless , unworthy. perchance : (adv ) m aybe, po ssibly, by chance, per adventu re, accidental ly, incidentally, m ayhap, chance, haphaza rd, prob ably, ha ply. pur plish : (adj) maje stic, violet, chromatic, imperi al, embellished, empurpled. squir m: (n, v ) wrig gle; (v) twi st, writhe, fidget, tw itch, dis tort, w orm, crawl, agoni ze, cree p, to squirm. tumultuously : (adv ) tu rbu lently, tempestuously, viol ently, uproari ously, b oisterously, tumult uarily, nois ily, furio usly, loudly, agit atedly; ( adj, a dv) madly.

Joseph Conrad 43 reappeared, jammed in the small opening; his head hung out, distended and tossing like a captive balloon, perspiring, furious, spluttering . He reached for the gharry-wallah with vicious flourishes of a fist as dumpy and red as a lump of raw meat. He roared at him to be o ff, to go on. Where? Into the Pacific, perhaps. The driver lashed; the pony snorted, reared once, and darted off at a gallop. Where? To Apia? To Honolulu? He had 6000 miles of tropical belt to disport himself in, and I did not hear the precise address. A snorting pony snatched him into "Ewigkeit" in the tw inkling of an eye, and I never saw him again; and, what's more, I don't know of anybody that ever had a glimpse of him after he departed from my knowledge si tting inside a ramshackle little gharry that fled round the corner in a white sm other of dust. He departed, disappeared, vanished, absconded; and absurdly enough it looked as though he had taken that gharry with him, for never again did I come across a sorrel pony with a slit ear and a lackadaisical Tamil driver afflicted by a sore foot. The Pacific is indeed big; but whether he found a place for a display of his talents in it or not, the fact remains he had flown into space like a witch on a broomstick. The little chap with his arm in a sling started to run after the carriage, bleating, "Captain! I say, Captain! I sa-a-ay!"--but after a few st eps stopped short, hung his head, and walked back slowly. At the sharp rattle of the wheels the young fellow spun round where he stood. He made no other movement, no gesture, no sign, and remained facing in the new direction after the gharry had swung out of sight. % 'All this happened in much less time than it takes to tell, since I am trying to interpret for you into slow speech the inst antaneous effect of visual impressions. Next moment the half-caste clerk, sent by Archie to look a little after the poor castaways of the Patna , came upon the scene. He ran out eager and bareheaded, looking right and left, and very full of his mission. It was doomed to be a failure as far as the principal person was concerned, but he approach ed the others with fussy importance, and, almost immediately, found himself involved in a violent altercation with the chap that carried his arm in a sling, and who turned out to be extremely anxious for a row. He wasn't going to be ordered about--"not he, b'gosh." He wouldn't be terrified with a pack of lies by a cocky half-bred little quill-driver. He was not going to be bullied by "no object of that sort," if the story Thesaurus altercation : (n, v ) quarrel, squabble; ( n) affray, scrap, fight, hassle, disagreement, fracas, strife, controversy, contest. ANTONYMS: (n) union, harmony, concord, agreement, unity, consensus. bareheaded: ( adj) hatless, bare, bald, unclothed, alone; ( v) cap in hand, obsequious, respectful, reverential, decorous, ceremonious. bleating : (n) bleat, baaing. disport : (n, v ) play, sport, wanton; ( v) amuse, divert, cavort, frisk, frolic, gambol, lark; ( n) diversion. distended: (adj ) inflated, bloated, turgid, puffed, bombastic, distent, expanded, enlarged; ( adj, v) puffy; ( v) blowzy, bigswoln. flourishes : (n) added extras, trappings, superfluities, trimmings, accompaniments, additions, embellishments. lackadaisical : (adj ) careless, listless, languid, casual, indifferent, lethargic, idle, phlegmatic, languorous, spiritless, enervated. ANTONYMS: (adj ) caring, strict, energetic, careful, wholehearted. perspiring : (adj ) sweaty, sweating, wet, warm, activity, sudatory, perspirable, emitting perspiration, body process, bodily process, bodily function. snorting: ( n) puffing, laughter, expiration, breathing out, exhalation. spluttering : (adj ) noisy.

Lord J im 44 were true "e ver so"! He bawle d his wish , his desire, his determination to go to bed. "If yo u weren't a Go d-for saken Portuguee ," I heard him yell, "yo u wo uld know tha t the hospi tal is the right pla ce for me." He pushed the fist of h is so un d arm under the other's nose; a crowd bega n to col lect; the ha lf-caste, f lustered, but doing his best to appear dignifie d, trie d to explain his intentions. I went away wi thout wai ting to see the end. % 'But it so h appened that I had a m an in the hospital at the t ime, and goin g there to see about him th e day be fore the opening of the Inquir y, I saw in t he whi te men's wa rd tha t little cha p toss ing on h is b ack, with his arm in sp lints, an d qu ite light -headed. To my great su rpri se the ot her one, the long individ ual w ith drooping wh ite moust ach e, had a lso f oun d his way there. I remembered I had seen him slinking aw ay durin g the q uarrel , in a h alf prance , h alf shu ffle, and trying very hard not to look scared. H e w as no stranger to the port, it seems, and in his d istre ss was able to make tracks straight for Mar ian i's billiar d-room an d grog-shop n ear the b azaar. Th at un speak able vagabo nd , Marian i, who had known the man and h ad m inistered to his vices in one or two other places, kissed the ground, in a manner o f speaking, befo re him, an d shut him up with a supply of bottles in an upstairs room of his infamo us hov el. It a ppea rs he wa s under some hazy apprehension as to his pers onal safety, and wished to be concealed . However, M arian i told me a long t ime a fter (when he came on board one day to dun my steward for the pr ice of some c igar s) th at he would h ave done more for him without asking an y questions, from gratit ud e for some unholy favou r received very many ye ars ago --as far as I coul d m ake out. He thumped twi ce hi s brawn y chest, rolle d eno rmous black -and -white e yes g listenin g with tear s: "Antonio never forget--Ant onio never fo rget !" What was the precise nature o f the immora l obl igation I neve r le arned, bu t be it what it may, he h ad every fac ility given him to remain under lock and key, wi th a cha ir, a ta ble, a ma ttress i n a corner, and a litter of fallen plaster on the floor, in an irration al stat e of funk , a nd keeping up his pe cker wit h such tonic s as Mar iani d ispense d. This lasted till th e eveni ng of the thi rd da y, when, af ter l etting out a few horri ble screa ms, he f ound himsel f compelle d t o seek safet y in f light from a leg ion of centiped es. He bur st the door open, made on e leap for dear li fe down the craz y li ttle st airwa y, la nded Thesaurus brawny: (adj, n ) hef ty, burly; ( adj) strong, a thletic, s turdy, s trapping, beefy, po werful, ro bus t, stalwa rt, mighty. ANTONY MS: ( adj) ski nny, puny, we ak, frai l, powerle ss, delic ate, feeble. cen tipedes: (n) phy lum Arthropod a. funk : (n) cowa rd, horror, fea r, drea d, depression; (v) crin ge, flinch, cow er, quail, recoil, shrink. hovel : (n) hu t, cot, booth, hole, c ottage, hutch, s hanty, both y, s hed, s hack, croft. ANTON YM: (n) man sion. light-headed : (adj) dizzy, fligh ty, skittish, que er, faint , lightheaded. pecker : (n) be ak, co ck, D ick, s haft, ne b, nib, prick, peckerw ood , tool, wood peck er, Peter. prance: (n, v ) swa gger, s trut; (v) bound, lea p, frolic, parade, ga mbol, cavort, c aper, cu rve t, bou nce. slinking : (adj) ste althy, surreptitio us, furtive. tossing : (n) cast; ( adj) moving. tracks : (n) netw ork. unholy : (adj) wicke d, sinfu l, unh allowed, profane, fiendish, impious, diabol ic, infernal, unsanctifi ed, evil; ( adv ) wi ckedly. ANTONY MS: ( adj) reasonable, pio us, godly, sensi ble, reli gious. vagabond : (n, v ) tramp; ( adj, n ) vagrant; ( v) ro am, stra y, wa nder, range, ram ble; ( n) outcast, bu m, wanderer, nom ad. ANTONY MS: ( n) inha bitant, resident ; (adj) settled.

Joseph Conrad 45 bodily %on Mariani's stomach, picked himself up, and bolted like a rabbit into the streets. The police plucked him off a garbag e-heap in the early morning. At first he had a notion they were carrying him o ff to be hanged, and fought for liberty like a hero, but when I sat down by his be d he had been very quiet for two days. His lean bronzed head, with white moustaches, looked fine and calm on the pillow, like the head of a war-worn soldier with a child-like soul, had it not been for a hint of spectral alarm that lurked in the blank glitter of his glance, resembling a nondescript form of a terror crouching silently behind a pane of glass. He was so extremely calm, that I be gan to indulge in the eccentric hope of hearing something explanatory of the famous affair from his point of view. Why I longed to go grubbing into the deplorable details of an occurrence which, after all, concerned me no more than as a member of an obscure body of men held together by a community of inglorious toil and by fidelity to a certain standard of conduct, I can't explain. You may call it an unhealthy curiosity if you like; but I have a distinct notion I wished to find something. Perhaps, unconsciously, I hoped I would find that something, some profound and redeeming cause, some merciful explanation, some convincing shadow of an excuse. I see well enough now that I hoped for the impossible--for the laying of what is the most obstinate ghost of man's creation, of the uneasy doubt uprising like a mist, secret and gnawing like a worm, and more chilling than th e certitude of death--the doubt of the sovereign power enthroned in a fixed standard of conduct. It is the hardest thing to stumble against; it is the thing that breeds yelling panics and good little quiet villainies; it's the true shadow of calamity. Did I believe in a miracle? and why did I desire it so ardently? Was it for my own sake that I wished to find some shadow of an excuse for that young fellow whom I had never seen before, but whose appearance alone added a touch of personal concern to the thoughts suggested by the knowledge of his weakness--made it a thing of mystery and terror--like a hint of a destructive fate ready for us all whose youth--in its day-- had resembled his youth? I fear that such was the secret motive of my prying. I was, and no mistake, looking for a miracle. The only thing that at this distance of time strikes me as miraculous is the extent of my imbecility. I positively hoped to obtain from that battered and shady invalid some exorcism against the ghost of Thesaurus ardently: (adv ) fervently, warmly, eagerly, intensely, fierily, avidly, enthusiastically, burningly, zealously, fervidly; ( adj, adv) hotly. ANTONYMS: ( adv) indifferently, apathetically, unenthusiastically, halfheartedly, calmly. bronzed: ( adj) bronze, browned, tan, suntanned, sunburned, ruddy, brunet, brown, brunette. ANTONYM: ( adj) pale. exorcism : (n) bewitchery, incantation, supernaturalism, mysticism, second sight, mesmerism, charm, abracadabra, dispossession, magic, enchantment. gnawing : (v) corroding, biting; ( n) arrosion. grubbing: (adj ) studious. inglorious : (adj ) disgraceful, dishonourable, disreputable, infamous, black, ignominious, stigmatic, discreditable, obscure, shameful, opprobrious. ANTONYM: (adj ) magnificent. nondescript : (adj ) indescribable, dull, ordinary, vague, indefinite, indefinable, unremarkable; ( n) soul, someone, somebody, person. ANTONYMS: ( adj) extraordinary, distinctive, exciting, special. prying : (adj ) inquisitive, meddlesome, nosy, inquiring, nosey, intrusive, busy, snoopy; ( n) nosiness, curiosity; (adj, n) meddling. ANTONYMS: ( adj) apathetic; ( n) apathy.

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