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Joseph Conrad, An Outcast of the Islands,
1895
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Willems Thinks about Death
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Part V, Chapter II:
…He had a terrible vision of shadowless horizons
where blue sky and the blue sea met; of a circular and blazing
emptiness where a dead tree and a dead man drifted together,
endlessly, up and down, upon the brilliant undulations of the
straits. No ships there. Only death. And the river led to it.
He sat up with a profound groan.
Yes, death. Why should he die? No! Better solitude,
better hopeless waiting, alone. Alone. No! He was not alone, he saw
death looking at him from everywhere; from the bushes, from the
clouds — he heard her speaking to him in a murmur of the river,
filling the space, touching his heart, his brain with a cold hand.
He could see and think of nothing else. He saw it — the sure death —
everywhere. He saw it so close that he was always on the point of
throwing out his arms to keep it off. It poisoned all he saw, all he
did; the miserable food he ate, the muddy waters he drank; it gave a
frightful aspect to sunrises and sunsets, to the brightness of hot
noon, to the cooling shadows of the evenings. He saw the horrible
form among the big trees, in the network of creepers, in the
fantastic outlines of leaves, of the great indented leaves that
seemed to be so many enormous hands with big broad palms, with stiff
fingers outspread to lay hold of him; hands gentle stirring, or
hands arrested in a frightful immobility, with a stillness attentive
and watching for the opportunity to take him, to enlace him, to
strangle him, to hold him until he died; hands that would hold him
dead, that would never let go, that would cling to his body forever
till it perished — disappeared in their frantic and tenacious grasp.
And yet the world was full of life. All the things,
all the men he knew, existed, moved, breathed; and he saw them in a
long perspective, far off, diminished, distinct, desirable,
unattainable, precious … lost forever. Round him, ceaselessly, there
went on without a sound the mad turmoil of tropical life. After he
had died all this would remain! He wanted to clasp, to embrace solid
things; he had an immense craving for sensations; for touching,
pressing, seeing, handling, holding on to all these things. All this
would remain — remain for years, for ages, forever. After he had
miserably died there, all this would remain, would live, would exist
in joyous sunlight, would breathe in the coolness of serene nights.
What for, then? He would be dead. He would be
stretched upon the warm moisture of the ground, feeling nothing,
seeing nothing, knowing nothing; he would lie still, passive,
rotting slowly; while over him, under him, through him — unopposed,
busy, hurried — the endless and minute throngs of insects, little
shining monsters of repulsive shapes, with horns, with claws, with
pincers, would swarm in streams, in rushes, in eager struggle for
his body; would swarm countless, persistent, ferocious and greedy —
till there would remain nothing but the white gleam of bleaching
bones in the long grass; in the long grass that would shoot its
feathery heads between the bare and polished ribs. There would be
that only left of him; nobody would miss him; no one would remember
him.
Nonsense! It could not be….
Willem’s Death:
Part V, Chapter IV
"… Go helpless and lie to the forests, to the sea …
to the death that awaits you…"
She ceased as if strangled. She saw in the horror of
the passing second the half-naked, wild-looking man before her; she
heard the faint shrillness of Joanna’s insane shrieks for help
somewhere down by the riverside. The sunlight streamed on her, on
him, on the mute land, on the murmuring river — the gentle
brilliance of a serene morning that, to her, seemed traversed by
ghastly flashes of uncertain darkness. Hate filled the world, filled
the space between them — the hate of race, the hate of hopeless
diversity, the hate of blood; the hate against the man born in the
land of lies and of evil from which nothing but misfortune comes to
those who are not white. And as she stood, maddened, she heard a
whisper near her, the whisper of the dead Omar’s voice saying in her
ear: "Kill! Kill!"
She cried, seeing him move —
"Do not come near me …or you die now! Go while I
remember yet…remember…."
Willems pulled himself together for a struggle. He
dared not go unarmed. He made a long stride, and saw her raise the
revolver. He noticed that she had not cocked it, and said to himself
that, even if she did fire, she would surely miss. Go too high; it
was a stiff trigger. He made a step nearer — saw the long barrel
moving unsteadily at the end of her extended arm. He thought: This
is my time …He bent his knees slightly, throwing his body forward,
and took off with a long bound for a tearing rush.
He saw a burst of red flame before his eyes, and was deafened by
a report that seemed to him louder than a clap of thunder. Something
stopped him short, and he stood aspiring in his nostrils the acrid
smell of the blue smoke that drifted from before his eyes like an
immense cloud…. Missed, by Heaven! Thought so!… And he saw her very
far off, throwing her arms up, while the revolver, very small, lay
on the ground between them…. Missed!… He would go and pick it up
now. Never before did he understand, as in that second, the joy, the
triumphant delight of sunshine and of life. His mouth was full of
something salty and warm. He tried to cough; spat out….Who shrieks:
In the name of God, he dies! — he dies! — Who dies? — Must pick up —
Night! What?… Night already….
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