The Arrow of Gold.txt

The Arrow of Gold







by Joseph Conrad



















THE ARROW OF GOLD - A STORY BETWEEN TWO NOTES



















FIRST NOTE















The pages which follow have been extracted from a pile of



manuscript which was apparently meant for the eye of one woman



only.  She seems to have been the writer's childhood's friend.



They had parted as children, or very little more than children.



Years passed.  Then something recalled to the woman the companion



of her young days and she wrote to him:  "I have been hearing of



you lately.  I know where life has brought you.  You certainly



selected your own road.  But to us, left behind, it always looked



as if you had struck out into a pathless desert.  We always



regarded you as a person that must be given up for lost.  But you



have turned up again; and though we may never see each other, my



memory welcomes you and I confess to you I should like to know the



incidents on the road which has led you to where you are now."







And he answers her:  "I believe you are the only one now alive who



remembers me as a child.  I have heard of you from time to time,



but I wonder what sort of person you are now.  Perhaps if I did



know I wouldn't dare put pen to paper.  But I don't know.  I only



remember that we were great chums.  In fact, I chummed with you



even more than with your brothers.  But I am like the pigeon that



went away in the fable of the Two Pigeons.  If I once start to tell



you I would want you to feel that you have been there yourself.  I



may overtax your patience with the story of my life so different



from yours, not only in all the facts but altogether in spirit.



You may not understand.  You may even be shocked.  I say all this



to myself; but I know I shall succumb!  I have a distinct



recollection that in the old days, when you were about fifteen, you



always could make me do whatever you liked."







He succumbed.  He begins his story for her with the minute



narration of this adventure which took about twelve months to



develop.  In the form in which it is presented here it has been



pruned of all allusions to their common past, of all asides,



disquisitions, and explanations addressed directly to the friend of



his childhood.  And even as it is the whole thing is of



considerable length.  It seems that he had not only a memory but



that he also knew how to remember.  But as to that opinions may



differ.







This, his first great adventure, as he calls it, begins in



Marseilles.  It ends there, too.  Yet it might have happened



anywhere.  This does not mean that the people concerned could have



come together in pure space.  The locality had a definite



importance.  As to the time, it is easily fixed by the events at



about the middle years of the seventies, when Don Carlos de



Bourbon, encouraged by the general reaction of all Europe against



the excesses of communistic Republicanism, made his attempt for the



throne of Spain, arms in hand, amongst the hills and gorges of



Guipuzcoa.  It is perhaps the last instance of a Pretender's



adventure for a Crown that History will have to record with the



usual grave moral disapproval tinged by a shamefaced regret for the



departing romance.  Historians are very much like other people.







However, History has nothing to do with this tale.  Neither is the



moral justification or condemnation of conduct aimed at here.  If



anything it is perhaps a little sympathy that the writer expects



for his buried youth, as he lives it over again at the end of his



insignificant course on this earth.  Strange person - yet perhaps



not so very different from ourselves.







A few words as to certain facts may be added.







It may seem that he was plunged very abruptly into this long



adventure.  But from certain passages (suppressed here because



mixed up with irrelevant matter) it appears clearly that at the



time of the meeting in the cafe, Mills had already gathered, in



various quarters, a definite view of the eager youth who had been



introduced to him in that ultra-legitimist salon.  What Mills had



learned represented him as a young gentleman who had arrived



furnished with proper credentials and who apparently was doing his



best to waste his life in an eccentric fashion, with a bohemian set



(one poet, at least, emerged out of it later) on one side, and on



the other making friends with the people of the Old Town, pilots,



coasters, sailors, workers of all sorts.  He pretended rather



absurdly to be a seaman himself and was already credited with an



ill-defined and vaguely illegal enterprise in the Gulf of Mexico.



At once it occurred to Mills that this eccentric youngster was the



very person for what the legitimist sympathizers had very much at



heart just then:  to organize a supply by sea of arms and



ammunition to the Carlist detachments in the South.  It was



precisely to confer on that matter with Dona Rita that Captain



Blunt had been despatched from Headquarters.







Mills got in touch with Blunt at once and put the suggestion before



him.  The Captain thought this the very thing.  As a matter of



fact, on that evening of Carnival, those two, Mills and Blunt, had



been actually looking everywhere for our man.  They had decided



that he should be drawn into the affair if it could be done.  Blunt



naturally wanted to see him first.  He must have estimated him a



promising person, but, from another point of view, not dangerous.



Thus lightly was the notorious (and at the same time mysterious)



Monsieur George brought into the world; out of the contact of two



minds which did not give a single thought to his flesh and blood.







Their purpose explains the intimate tone given to their first



conversation and the sudden introduction of Dona Rita's history.



Mills, of course, wanted to hear all about it.  As to Captain Blunt



- I suspect that, at the time, he was thinking of nothing else.  In



addition it was Dona Rita who would have to do the persuading; for,



after all, such an enterprise with its ugly and desperate risks was



not a trifle to put before a man - however young.







It cannot be denied that Mills seems to have acted somewhat



unscrupulously.  He himself appears to have had some doubt about



it, at a given moment, as they were driving to the Prado.  But



perhaps Mills, with his penetration, understood very well the



nature he was dealing with.  He might even have envied it.  But



it's not my business to excuse Mills.  As to him whom we may regard



as Mills' victim it is obvious that he has never harboured a single



reproachful thought.  For him Mills is not to be criticized.  A



remarkable instance of the great power of mere individuality over



the young.



















PART ONE



















CHAPTER I















Certain streets have an atmosphere of their own, a sort of



universal fame and the particular affection of their citizens.  One



of such streets is the Cannebiere, and the jest:  "If Paris had a



Cannebiere it would be a little Marseilles" is the jocular



expression of municipal pride.  I, too, I have been under the



spell.  For me it has been a street leading into the unknown.







There was a part of it where one could see as many as five big



cafes in a resplendent row.  That evening I strolled into one of



them.  It was by no means full.  It looked deserted, in fact,



festal and overlighted, but cheerful.  The wonderful street was



distinctly cold (it was an evening of carnival), I was very idle,



and I was feeling a little lonely.  So I went in and sat down.







The carnival time was drawing to an end.  Everybody, high and low,



was anxious to have the last fling.  Companies of masks with linked



arms and whooping like red Indians swept the streets in crazy



rushes while gusts of cold mistral swayed the gas lights as far as



the eye could reach.  There was a touch of bedlam in all this.







Perhaps it was that which made me feel lonely, since I was neither



masked, nor disguised, nor yelling, nor in any other way in harmony



with the bedlam element of life.  But I was not sad.  I was merely



in a state of sobriety.  I had just returned from my second West



Indies voyage.  My eyes were still full of tropical splendour, my



memory of my experiences, lawful and lawless, which had their charm



and their thrill; for they had startled me a little and had amused



me considerably.  But they had left me untouched.  Indeed they were



other men's adventures, not mine.  Except for a little habit of



responsibility which I had acquired they had not matured me.  I was



as young as before.  Inconceivably young - still beautifully



unthinking - infinitely receptive.







You may believe that I was not thinking of Don Carlos and his fight



for a kingdom.  Why should I?  You don't want to think of things



which you meet every day in the newspapers and in conversation.  I



had paid some calls since my return and most of my acquaintance



were legitimists and intensely interested in the events of the



frontier of Spain, for political, religious, or romantic reasons.



But I was not interested.  Apparently I was not romantic enough.



Or was it that I was even more romantic than all those good people?



The affair seemed to me commonplace.  That man was attending to his



business of a Pretender.







...