De
la vida de Jim, su apariencia física, su profesión, sus habilidades, de las
costumbres al llegar un barco al puerto, de las ofertas de provisiones de casas
mayoristas, y de su deseo de conservar el anonimato. Lord Jim, novela de Joseph Conrad
He was an inch,
perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you
with a slight stoop of the
shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a
charging bull. His voice was deep, loud, and his manner displayed a kind of
dogged self-assertion which had
nothing aggressive in it. It seemed a necessity, and it was directed apparently
as much at himself as at anybody else. He was spotlessly neat, apparelled in
immaculate white from shoes to hat, and in the various Eastern ports where he
got his living as ship-chandler's water-clerk he was very popular.
A water-clerk
need not pass an examination in anything under the sun, but he must have
Ability in the abstract and demonstrate it practically. His work consists in
racing under sail, steam, or oars against other water-clerks for any ship about
to anchor, greeting her captain cheerily, forcing upon him a card—the business
card of the ship-chandler—and on his first visit on shore piloting him firmly
but without ostentation to a vast, cavern-like shop which is full of things
that are eaten and drunk on board ship; where you can get everything to make
her seaworthy and beautiful, from a set of chain-hooks for her cable to a book
of gold-leaf for the carvings of her stern; and where her commander is received
like a brother by a ship-chandler he has never seen before. There is a cool
parlour, easy-chairs, bottles, cigars, writing implements, a copy of harbour
regulations, and a warmth of welcome that melts the salt of a three months'
passage out of a seaman's heart. The connection thus begun is kept up, as long
as the ship remains in harbour, by the daily visits of the water-clerk. To the
captain he is faithful like a friend and attentive like a son, with the
patience of Job, the unselfish devotion of a woman, and the jollity of a boon companion. Later on the bill is
sent in. It is a beautiful and humane occupation. Therefore good water-clerks
are scarce. When a water-clerk who possesses Ability in the abstract has also
the advantage of having been brought up to the sea, he is worth to his employer
a lot of money and some humouring. Jim had always good wages and as much
humouring as would have bought the fidelity of a fiend. Nevertheless, with
black ingratitude he would throw up the job suddenly and depart. To his
employers the reasons he gave were obviously inadequate. They said 'Confounded
fool!' as soon as his back was turned. This was their criticism on his
exquisite sensibility.
To the white men
in the waterside business and to the captains of ships he was just Jim—nothing
more. He had, of course, another name, but he was anxious that it should not be
pronounced. His incognito, which had as many holes as a sieve, was not meant to hide a personality but a fact. When the
fact broke through the incognito he would leave suddenly the seaport where he
happened to be at the time and go to another—generally farther east. He kept to
seaports because he was a seaman in exile from the sea, and had Ability in the
abstract, which is good for no other work but that of a water-clerk. He
retreated in good order towards the rising sun, and the fact followed him
casually but inevitably. Thus in the course of years he was known successively
in Bombay, in Calcutta, in Rangoon, in Penang, in Batavia—and in each of these
halting-places was just Jim the water-clerk. Afterwards, when his keen
perception of the Intolerable drove him away for good from seaports and white
men, even into the virgin forest, the Malays of the jungle village, where he
had elected to conceal his deplorable faculty, added a word to the monosyllable
of his incognito. They called him Tuan Jim: as one might say—Lord Jim.
Vocabulario
stoop: bend down
self-assertion: determined
advancement of one´s own personality, wishes, or views
boon: close,
special
sieve: filter
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