Donde
los exiliados sueñan con vidas relajadas, fuera de la rutina de sus países de origen,
y llenas de gloria. Jim es el oficial del Patna que se llena de peregrinos. Del
original ingles, Lord Jim…
Directly he
could walk without a stick, he descended into the town to look for some
opportunity to get home. Nothing offered just then, and, while waiting, he
associated naturally with the men of his calling in the port. These were of two
kinds. Some, very few and seen there but seldom, led mysterious lives, had
preserved an undefaced energy with the temper of buccaneers and the eyes of
dreamers. They appeared to live in a crazy maze of plans, hopes, dangers,
enterprises, ahead of civilisation, in the dark places of the sea; and their
death was the only event of their fantastic existence that seemed to have a
reasonable certitude of achievement. The majority were men who, like himself,
thrown there by some accident, had remained as officers of country ships. They
had now a horror of the home service, with its harder conditions, severer view
of duty, and the hazard of stormy oceans. They were attuned to the eternal
peace of Eastern sky and sea. They loved short passages, good deck-chairs,
large native crews, and the distinction of being white. They shuddered at the
thought of hard work, and led precariously easy lives, always on the verge of
dismissal, always on the verge of engagement, serving Chinamen, Arabs,
half-castes—would have served the devil himself had he made it easy enough.
They talked everlastingly of turns of luck: how So-and-so got charge of a boat
on the coast of China—a soft thing; how this one had an easy billet in Japan somewhere, and that one
was doing well in the Siamese navy; and in all they said—in their actions, in
their looks, in their persons—could be detected the soft spot, the place of
decay, the determination to lounge safely through existence.
To Jim that
gossiping crowd, viewed as seamen, seemed at first more unsubstantial than so many
shadows. But at length he found a fascination in the sight of those men, in
their appearance of doing so well on such a small allowance of danger and toil.
In time, beside the original disdain there grew up slowly another sentiment;
and suddenly, giving up the idea of going home, he took a berth as chief mate of the Patna.
The Patna was a
local steamer as old as the hills,
lean like a greyhound, and eaten up with rust worse than a condemned
water-tank. She was owned by a Chinaman, chartered
by an Arab, and commanded by a sort of renegade New South Wales German, very
anxious to curse publicly his native country, but who, apparently on the
strength of Bismarck's victorious policy, brutalised all those he was not
afraid of, and wore a 'blood-and-iron' air,' combined with a purple nose and a
red moustache. After she had been painted outside and whitewashed inside, eight
hundred pilgrims (more or less) were driven on board of her as she lay with
steam up alongside a wooden jetty.
SS Inlander, 1911, Wikipedia |
They streamed
aboard over three gangways, they
streamed in urged by faith and the hope of paradise, they streamed in with a
continuous tramp and shuffle of bare
feet, without a word, a murmur, or a look back; and when clear of confining
rails spread on all sides over the deck, flowed forward and aft, overflowed down the yawning
hatchways, filled the inner recesses of the ship—like water filling a cistern,
like water flowing into crevices and crannies,
like water rising silently even with the rim.
Eight hundred men and women with faith and hopes, with affections and memories,
they had collected there, coming from north and south and from the outskirts of
the East, after treading the jungle paths, descending the rivers, coasting in praus along the shallows, crossing in
small canoes from island to island, passing through suffering, meeting strange
sights, beset by strange fears,
upheld by one desire. They came from solitary huts in the wilderness, from
populous campongs, from villages by
the sea. At the call of an idea they had left their forests, their clearings,
the protection of their rulers, their prosperity, their poverty, the
surroundings of their youth and the graves of their fathers. They came covered
with dust, with sweat, with grime,
with rags—the strong men at the head of family parties, the lean old men
pressing forward without hope of return; young boys with fearless eyes glancing
curiously, shy little girls with tumbled
long hair; the timid women muffled
up and clasping to their breasts, wrapped in loose ends of soiled head-cloths,
their sleeping babies, the unconscious pilgrims of an exacting belief.
Síntesis
Al salir del hospital Jim conoce a otros hombres,
que como él quedaron varados en puertos ignotos. Todos tienen sueños de
grandeza. Consigue trabajo como primer oficial en el Patna, que lleva una gran
cantidad de peregrinos.
Vocabulario
Billet – Berth –
Steamer – Chartered – Jetty – Gangways – Shuffle - Aft Crannies/cranny – Rim –
Praus – Beset – Campong – Muffled
Tópicos para discutir
La existencia de los extraños en lugares alejados.
La vida de los extranjeros.
Los marineros que trabajan en todo el mundo.
La religión transformadora de vidas.
La peregrinación a los lugares sagrados.
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