NOVELS.
MR. CONRAD'S NEW STORIES.* THIS collection of six stories must be regarded as an interim dividend on Mr. Conrad's genius. It is right good Conrad, but it is not very fresh Conrad. One point interests us par- ticularly, and that is the way in which Mr. Conrad's mind has
evidently been revolving Anarchism and the working of all subterranean brotherhoods. Invisible human machinery was the theme in The Secret Agent, and in two stories in this volume—" The Informer" and "An Anarchist "—Mr. Conrad returns to it. But, intentionally no doubt, he has left the motive power of Anarchism alone; the mere machinery, as we have just called it, with all, its personal intriguing and scheming, is what has caught hie interest. The most terrific politics in -life presents itself to him as above all petty and sordid; and though the pettiness alongside the gigantic agencies employed may appear a paradox at first sight, we are sure that it is really the truth. All human organisations which work underground are mentally defective and intellec-
tually sordid by consequence. But may not Mr. Conrad delve deeper in this subject ? Anarchism, of course, is too anai.chic, if we may put it so, to yield typical characters or even a manageable philosophy ; yet the psychology of it, as the cant
term is, may engage Mr. Conrad's brain if his attention does not wander elsewhere. The following passage perhaps gives a clue to the direction of his thoughts :— " But, indeed, I don't understand anarchists. Does a man of that—of that—persuasion still remain an anarchist when alone, quite alone and going to bed, for instance? Does he lay his head on the pillow, pull his bedclothes over him, and go to sleep with the necessity of the chambardement gen4ral, as the French slang * A Set qf Six. By Joseph Conrad. Lyndon: Methuen and Co. 1-63.3
has it, of the general blow-up, always present to his mind ? And if so, how can he? I am sure that if such a faith (or such a fanaticism) once mastered my thoughts I would never be able to compose myself sufficiently to sleep or eat or perform any of the routine acts of daily life."
The scene of the first story, "Gaspar Ruiz," is the downfall of Spanish power in Peru, and the narrative is a study of gigantic physical strength in a man, allied with an unusual docility. The story is of endless peril and of great ideals, mingled with hopeless offences against humanity ; it is a true
setting for motives which are intensely human, and not (as most writers would have made them) conventionally heroic,—
heroic in virtue as well as heroic in atrocity. Gaspar Ruiz, the strong man, is a "deserter" from the Republicans simply because he was lassoed and led captive into the Royalist camp. Once in the Royalist army he fires off his musket mechanically at his old friends because he dares not do otherwise, though be dislikes the job. When he is recaptured by the Re- publicans he is tortured and condemned to death. Escaping death by a miracle of good fortune be rejoins the Royalists and becomes, like Attila, a " scourge " to the Republican territory. His tempestuous recklessness, which might have been attributed to bitterness and rancorous memories, is, by a beautiful example of Mr. Conrad's skill, not made incon- sistent with his elephantine docility, as it is implicitly set forth as a kind of higher power of docility to a woman's wilt. Altogether this is a finely subtle reading of a man's heart and character which scarcely any one but Mr. Conrad could have written. The second story, "The Informer," is described as "an ironic tale." In this we find a certain confusion of method.
How difficult a thing is irony to handle ! If only rules were a safe enough guide we should not catch an artist like Mr. Conrad transgressing them. But even an artist may "escape
his own notice" in this matter and fail without knowing it. Irony is :like tact. Only the looker-on can judge it. We have already given a quotation from this story, and it is clearly a reflection which is perfectly serious in substance. After once using that key, Mr. Conrad cannot transpose his story into another—which is the ironic key—without unsettling the whole attitude of his reader. In this respect we happen to have an exact point of comparison with another writer, as Stevenson did give us an artistically sustained piece of irony in The Dynamiter. In "The Brute," Mr. Conrad may well trap the reader, like one of the characters in the story, into believing, at first, that he is reading the murderous
record of a desperately bad woman's life. Really it is all the description of a ship which could never do right,—such is the anthropomorphic habit with which experienced men of the sea think of their ships. The fourth story, to which we have already referred, is called "An Anarchist." The fifth, "The Duel," is a highly ingenious rendering of the French legend of the two officers who fought one another again and again on the duelling-field whenever there was a lull in the tremendous operations of Napoleon's grand army. The reader's sense of the implacability of the fearless but capricious butcher. who challenges his enemy without remission and without remorse grows, as it should, unchecked to the culmination of- the duel in the wood, which is the most thrilling piece of writing in the book. Incidentally we may remark that Mr. Conrturs handling of the rumours which make each duel in its turn necessary on "a point of honour" happens really to be a better achievement in irony than the tale which is purposely labelled "ironic." The last story is a mere sketch (called "pathetic," but verging, as pathos so often does, on the humorous) introducing as a motif the idea of "See Naples and die." The respectable principal character, who has the
misfortune to fall foul of a Neapolitan apache, has to flee Naples in order not to die. We venture to make positively
only one suggestion as to how Mr. Conrad might increase the reality of his delicate and particular explorations into character, and that is that be might often put into narrative what he actually puts into dialogue. There is frequently no reason that we can discover for the choice of dialogue as hie vehicle, and the manner certainly is less well suited to it than to narrative.
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