105 Lord Jim, Czytamy w oryginale
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Joseph Conrad
Lord Jim
Retold by Graham Read
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o r y g i n a l
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Chapter I
© Mediasat Poland Bis 2005
Jim
Mediasat Poland Bis sp. z o.o.
ul. Mikołajska 26
31-027 Kraków
www.czytamy.pl
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Projekt okładki i ilustracje: Małgorzata Flis
Skład: Marek Szwarnóg
ISBN 83 - 89652 - 16 - 1
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He was an inch or two under six feet
tall and powerfully built. His voice was
deep and loud and he was always very well
dressed. He worked in the ports of the Far
East. He was known as Jim, just Jim. He
had another name, but he was afraid of
anyone knowing it, because he wanted to
hide a fact. And when the fact was known,
he would suddenly leave port. He was
travelling slowly but surely towards the
rising sun.
Afterwards, when he finally decided to
leave the ports behind him, the Malays of
the jungle village he came to live in added
another word to his name. They called him
Tuan Jim: or Lord Jim.
Jim had always wanted to be a sailor
and after two years of training he went
to sea, he had dreamed of the sea and the
adventures it would bring all his life. So
when he finally entered the regions so well
known to his imagination, he found them
strangely empty of excitement. However,
he worked hard, was gentlemanly and had
a thorough knowledge of his duties. In
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time, when still very young, he became
chief mate of a fine ship.
On this ship, Jim had his first piece of
bad luck; he was badly injured during a
storm when one of the ship’s sails fell
on him. His Scottish captain would say
afterwards, “Man! It was a perfect miracle
how he survived it!”. Jim’s injuries
continued and when the ship arrived at
the next port, Jim was left behind. In this
Eastern city Jim met many new characters,
generally of two kinds. Some, very few,
lived energetic lives, full of dreams,
dangers, hopes and plans. However most
were lazy, they hated the horror of hard
work, they loved short voyages and the
difference of being white. They led easy
lives. At first this gossiping crowd seemed
to be nothing more than shadows, but
after a time Jim became fascinated with
them and their lives of leisure, so he gave
up the idea of going back to England, and
took the job of chief mate on a ship called
the Patna. The ship was to carry eight
hundred pilgrims to a port in the Red Sea.
The captain of this ship was a German,
who had no love for his home country.
He was enormously fat, and looked like
a baby elephant who had been trained to
walk on his back legs.
A month or so later, Jim was in court,
trying to explain what had happened on
the Patna. This was when we first looked at
each other, and I still remember Jims’ story
quite clearly. Everybody was there in that
courtroom as it was such a notorious story.
There had been four of them who escaped
from the ship. The captain, as soon as he
realised the seriousness of his actions had
run away immediately, saying in broken
English “Bah! the Pacific is big, my friend, I
know where there is plenty of room for me.
I vill an Amerigan citizen begome.” One of
the others, an older man, with a long grey
moustache had drunk himself into insanity,
it is said he had been drinking four bottles
a day of the most evil rum.
Jim was the only one of the four who was
able and willing to stand trial and when our
eyes first met in court he gave me a dark
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unfriendly stare. I was very interested to
find out his story. What had this clean,
honest, young man been doing, why had
he escaped with his crew members when
they seemed no better than criminals?
That had been the second day of
the trial. This was when I had my first
meeting with Jim. I was walking out of
the court with my friend and we had
just gone past Jim. At that moment my
companion nearly fell over a little yellow
dog that had been wandering about
between people’s legs.
“Look at that miserable dog,” said my
friend.
”Did you speak to me?” asked Jim,
directing the question to me.
“No,” I replied.
“You say you didn’t, but I heard you, and
what did you mean by staring at me all this
morning during the trial. I won’t let any
man call me names outside this court. Even
if you were the size of two men, and as
strong as six I would tell you what I thought
of you,” he said.
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