II.2. Young Powell Sees And Hears
"You remember," went on Marlow, "how I feared that Mr. Powell's want of experience
would stand in his way of appreciating the unusual. The unusual I had in my mind was
something of a very subtle sort: the unusual in marital relations. I may well have
doubted the capacity of a young man too much concerned with the creditable
performance of his professional duties to observe what in the nature of things is not
easily observable in itself, and still less so under the special circumstances. In the
majority of ships a second officer has not many points of contact with the captain's wife.
He sits at the same table with her at meals, generally speaking; he may now and then
be addressed more or less kindly on insignificant matters, and have the opportunity to
show her some small attentions on deck. And that is all. Under such conditions, signs
can be seen only by a sharp and practised eye. I am alluding now to troubles which are
subtle often to the extent of not being understood by the very hearts they devastate or
uplift.
Yes, Mr. Powell, whom the chance of his name had thrown upon the floating stage of
that tragicomedy would have been perfectly useless for my purpose if the unusual of an
obvious kind had not aroused his attention from the first.
We know how he joined that ship so suddenly offered to his anxious desire to make a
real start in his profession. He had come on board breathless with the hurried winding
up of his shore affairs, accompanied by two horrible night-birds, escorted by a dock
policeman on the make, received by an asthmatic shadow of a ship-keeper, warned not
to make a noise in the darkness of the passage because the captain and his wife were
already on board. That in itself was already somewhat unusual. Captains and their
wives do not, as a rule, join a moment sooner than is necessary. They prefer to spend
the last moments with their friends and relations. A ship in one of London's older docks
with their restrictions as to lights and so on is not the place for a happy evening. Still, as
the tide served at six in the morning, one could understand them coming on board the
evening before.
Just then young Powell felt as if anybody ought to be glad enough to be quit of the
shore. We know he was an orphan from a very early age, without brothers or sisters--no
near relations of any kind, I believe, except that aunt who had quarrelled with his father.
No affection stood in the way of the quiet satisfaction with which he thought that now all
the worries were over, that there was nothing before him but duties, that he knew what
he would have to do as soon as the dawn broke and for a long succession of days. A
most soothing certitude. He enjoyed it in the dark, stretched out in his bunk with his new
blankets pulled over him. Some clock ashore beyond the dock-gates struck two. And
then he heard nothing more, because he went off into a light sleep from which he woke
up with a start. He had not taken his clothes off, it was hardly worth while. He jumped up
and went on deck.
