Joseph Conrad

Falk Joseph Conrad

Several of us, all more or less connected with the sea, were dining in a small river-hostelry notmore than thirty miles from London, and less than twenty from that shallow and dangerous puddleto which our coasting men give the grandiose name of "German Ocean." And through the widewindows we had a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down the Lower Hope Reach. But thedinner was execrable, and all the feast was for the eyes. That flavour of salt-water which for so many of us had been the very water of life permeated ourtalk. He who hath known the bitterness of the Ocean shall have its taste forever in his mouth. Butone or two of us, pampered by the life of the land, complained of hunger. It was impossible toswallow any of that stuff. And indeed there was a strange mustiness in everything. The woodendining-room stuck out over the mud of the shore like a lacustrine dwelling; the planks of the floorseemed rotten; a decrepit old waiter tottered pathetically to and fro before an antediluvian andworm-eaten sideboard; the chipped plates might have been disinterred from some kitchen middennear an inhabited lake; and the chops recalled times more ancient still. They brought forcibly toone's mind the night of ages when the primeval man, evolving the first rudiments of cookery fromhis dim consciousness, scorched lumps of flesh at a fire of sticks in the company of other goodfellows; then, gorged and happy, sat him back among the gnawed bones to tell his artless tales ofexperience-the tales of hunger and hunt-and of women, perhaps!But luckily the wine happened to be as old as the waiter. So, comparatively empty, but upon thewhole fairly happy, we sat back and told our artless tales. We talked of the sea and all its works. Thesea never changes, and its works for all the talk of men are wrapped in mystery. But we agreed thatthe times were changed. And we talked of old ships, of sea-accidents, of break-downs, dismastings;and of a man who brought his ship safe to Liverpool all the way from the River Platte under a juryrudder. We talked of wrecks, of short rations and of heroism-or at least of what the newspaperswould have called heroism at sea-a manifestation of virtues quite different from the heroism ofprimitive times. And now and then falling silent all together we gazed at the sights of the river.