"Conrad, Joseph - Chance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Conrad Joseph)

window. Go up boldly and say I sent you."

Our new acquaintance looking from one to the other of us declared:
"Upon my word, I had grown so desperate that I'd have gone boldly up
to the devil himself on the mere hint that he had a second mate's
job to give away."

It was at this point that interrupting his flow of talk to light his
pipe but holding us with his eye he inquired whether we had known
Powell. Marlow with a slight reminiscent smile murmured that he
"remembered him very well."

Then there was a pause. Our new acquaintance had become involved in
a vexatious difficulty with his pipe which had suddenly betrayed his
trust and disappointed his anticipation of self-indulgence. To keep
the ball rolling I asked Marlow if this Powell was remarkable in any
way.

"He was not exactly remarkable," Marlow answered with his usual
nonchalance. "In a general way it's very difficult for one to
become remarkable. People won't take sufficient notice of one,
don't you know. I remember Powell so well simply because as one of
the Shipping Masters in the Port of London he dispatched me to sea
on several long stages of my sailor's pilgrimage. He resembled
Socrates. I mean he resembled him genuinely: that is in the face.
A philosophical mind is but an accident. He reproduced exactly the
familiar bust of the immortal sage, if you will imagine the bust
with a high top hat riding far on the back of the head, and a black
coat over the shoulders. As I never saw him except from the other
side of the long official counter bearing the five writing desks of
the five Shipping Masters, Mr. Powell has remained a bust to me."

Our new acquaintance advanced now from the mantelpiece with his pipe
in good working order.

"What was the most remarkable about Powell," he enunciated
dogmatically with his head in a cloud of smoke, "is that he should
have had just that name. You see, my name happens to be Powell
too."

It was clear that this intelligence was not imparted to us for
social purposes. It required no acknowledgment. We continued to
gaze at him with expectant eyes.

He gave himself up to the vigorous enjoyment of his pipe for a
silent minute or two. Then picking up the thread of his story he
told us how he had started hot foot for Tower Hill. He had not been
that way since the day of his examination--the finest day of his
life--the day of his overweening pride. It was very different now.
He would not have called the Queen his cousin, still, but this time