FALK
Joseph Conrad
A REMINISCENCE
Several of us, all more or less connected with the
sea, were dining in a small river-hostelry not more
than thirty miles from London, and less than twenty
from that shallow and dangerous puddle to which
our coasting men give the grandiose name of "German
Ocean." And through the wide windows we had
a view of the Thames; an enfilading view down the
Lower Hope Reach. But the dinner was exe-
crable, and all the feast was for the eyes.
That flavour of salt-water which for so many of
us had been the very water of life permeated our
talk. He who hath known the bitterness of the Ocean
shall have its taste forever in his mouth. But one
or two of us, pampered by the life of the land,
complained of hunger. It was impossible to swallow
any of that stuff. And indeed there was a strange
mustiness in everything. The wooden dining-room
stuck out over the mud of the shore like a lacustrine
dwelling; the planks of the floor seemed rotten;
a decrepit old waiter tottered pathetically to and
fro before an antediluvian and worm-eaten sideboard;
the chipped plates might have been disinterred from
some kitchen midden near an inhabited lake; and
the chops recalled times more ancient still. They
brought forcibly to one's mind the night of ages
when the primeval man, evolving the
first rudiments of cookery from his dim conscious
ness, scorched lumps of flesh at a fire of sticks
in the company of other good fellows; then, gorged
and happy, sat him back among the gnawed bones to
tell his artless tales of experience-the tales of
hunger and hunt-and of women, perhaps!
But luckily the wine happened to be as old as the
waiter. So, comparatively empty, but upon the whole
fairly happy, we sat back and told our artless tales.
We talked of the sea and all its works. The sea
never changes, and its works for all the talk of
men are wrapped in mystery. But we agreed that the
times were changed. And we talked of old
ships, of sea-accidents, of break-downs, dismastings;
and of a man who brought his ship safe to Liverpool
all the way from the River Platte under a jury rudder.
We talked of wrecks, of short rations and of heroism
or at least of what the newspapers would have called
heroism at sea a manifestation of virtues quite
different from the heroism
of primitive times. And now and then falling silent
all together we gazed at the sights of the river.
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