Youth: A Short Story
()
About this ebook
Joseph Conrad
Polish-born Joseph Conrad is regarded as a highly influential author, and his works are seen as a precursor to modernist literature. His often tragic insight into the human condition in novels such as Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent is unrivalled by his contemporaries.
Read more from Joseph Conrad
Typhoon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Sharer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Youth: A Narrative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYouth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Modern Essays Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Greatest Books of All Time Vol. 2 (Dream Classics) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Agent Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Victory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heart of Darkness Thrift Study Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nostromo (Centaur Classics) [The 100 greatest novels of all time - #50] Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeart of Darkness and the Secret Sharer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Nigger of the "Narcissus" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Duel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5UNDER WESTERN EYES: An Intriguing Tale of Espionage and Betrayal in Czarist Russia Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Short Stories of Joseph Conrad - Volume II - Within the Tides Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Youth
Titles in the series (10)
Heart of Darkness: Adventure on the Congo River Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLord Jim: From the Far Corners of the Far East... High Adventure that Reaches Across the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe End of the Tether: Classic Fiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYouth: A Short Story Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Agent: A Gripping Thriller Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rover: A Story of Napoleonic Times Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTomorrow: Classic Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Typhoon: A Classic Sea Adventure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAmy Foster: Classic Short Story Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tales of Unrest: Classic Short Story Fiction Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related ebooks
Youth Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secret Sharer and Other Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsYouth, Heart of Darkness, and The End of the Tether Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Top 10 Short Stories - The 1890's - The Men Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJoseph Conrad - A Short Story Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSelected Works Of Joseph Conrad: Six-book Bundle Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwenty years at sea: Leaves from my old log-books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPowder Monkey: Adventures of a Young Sailor Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5James Braithwaite, the Supercargo: The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTyphoon: "There is nothing more enticing, disenchanting, and enslaving than the life at sea." Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTyphoon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Short Stories of Robert Louis Stevenson Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTwo Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Short Stories Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRobert Louis Stevenson: Short Stories: Complete Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Brassbounder Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Saga of Cimba Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Robert Louis Stevenson: Complete Short Stories in One Volume Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFull Speed Ahead: Tales from the Log of a Correspondent with Our Navy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSail Ho! A Boy at Sea Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsChance: A Tale in Two Parts Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Gipsy of the Horn - Life in a Deep-Sea Sailing Ship Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shadow Line: A Confession Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5List, Ye Landsmen!: A Romance of Incident Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMan Overboard! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Phantom Death, etc Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Classics For You
The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mythos Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master & Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Confederacy of Dunces Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wuthering Heights (with an Introduction by Mary Augusta Ward) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things They Carried Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Old Man and the Sea: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sense and Sensibility (Centaur Classics) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Master and Margarita Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Little Women (Seasons Edition -- Winter) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Jungle: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5We Have Always Lived in the Castle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Farewell to Arms Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Learn French! Apprends l'Anglais! THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: In French and English Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm: A Fairy Story Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Poisonwood Bible: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Count of Monte Cristo (abridged) (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Quiet American Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5East of Eden Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTitus Groan Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Youth
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Youth - Joseph Conrad
YOUTH
This could have occurred nowhere but in England, where men and sea interpenetrate, so to speak—the sea entering into the life of most men, and the men knowing something or everything about the sea, in the way of amusement, of travel, or of bread-winning.
We were sitting round a mahogany table that reflected the bottle, the claret-glasses, and our faces as we leaned on our elbows. There was a director of companies, an accountant, a lawyer, Marlow, and myself. The director had been a Conway boy, the accountant had served four years at sea, the lawyer—a fine crusted Tory, High Churchman, the best of old fellows, the soul of honour—had been chief officer in the P. & O. service in the good old days when mail-boats were square-rigged at least on two masts, and used to come down the China Sea before a fair monsoon with stun’-sails set alow and aloft. We all began life in the merchant service. Between the five of us there was the strong bond of the sea, and also the fellowship of the craft, which no amount of enthusiasm for yachting, cruising, and so on can give, since one is only the amusement of life and the other is life itself.
Marlow (at least I think that is how he spelt his name) told the story, or rather the chronicle, of a voyage:
" Yes, I have seen a little of the Eastern seas; but what I remember best is my first voyage there. You fellows know there are those voyages that seem ordered for the illustration of life, that might stand for a symbol of existence. You fight, work, sweat, nearly kill yourself, sometimes do kill yourself, trying to accomplish something—and you can’t. Not from any fault of yours. You simply can do nothing, neither great nor little—not a thing in the world—not even marry an old maid, or get a wretched 600-ton cargo of coal to its port of destination.
" It was altogether a memorable affair. It was my first voyage to the East, and my first voyage as second mate; it was also my skipper’s first command. You’ll admit it was time. He was sixty if a day; a little man, with a broad, not very straight back, with bowed shoulders and one leg more bandy than the other, he had that queer twisted-about appearance you see so often in men who work in the fields. He had a nut-cracker face—chin and nose trying to come together over a sunken mouth—and it was framed in iron-grey fluffy hair, that looked like a chin strap of cotton-wool sprinkled with coal-dust. And he had blue eyes in that old face of his, which were amazingly like a boy’s, with that candid expression some quite common men preserve to the end of their days by a rare internal gift of simplicity of heart and rectitude of soul. What induced him to accept me was a wonder. I had come out of a crack Australian clipper, where I had been third officer, and he seemed to have a prejudice against crack clippers as aristocratic and high-toned. He said to me, ‘You know, in this ship you will have to work.’ I said I had to work in every ship I had ever been in. ‘Ah, but this is different, and you gentlemen out of them big ships;... but there! I dare say you will do. Join to-morrow.’
" I joined to-morrow. It was twenty-two years ago; and I was just twenty. How time passes! It was one of the happiest days of my life. Fancy! Second mate for the first time—a really responsible officer! I wouldn’t have thrown up my new billet for a fortune. The mate looked me over carefully. He was also an old chap, but of another stamp. He had a Roman nose, a snow-white, long beard, and his name was Mahon, but he insisted that it should be pronounced Mann. He was well connected; yet