Tales of Unrest | Page 3

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TALES OF UNREST
BY
JOSEPH CONRAD

"Be it thy course to being giddy minds With foreign quarrels." --
SHAKESPEARE

TO ADOLF P. KRIEGER FOR THE SAKE OF OLD DAYS

CONTENTS
KARAIN: A MEMORY THE IDIOTS AN OUTPOST OF
PROGRESS THE RETURN THE LAGOON

AUTHOR'S NOTE
Of the five stories in this volume, "The Lagoon," the last in order, is the
earliest in date. It is the first short story I ever wrote and marks, in a
manner of speaking, the end of my first phase, the Malayan phase with
its special subject and its verbal suggestions. Conceived in the same
mood which produced "Almayer's Folly" and "An Outcast of the
Islands," it is told in the same breath (with what was left of it, that is,
after the end of "An Outcast"), seen with the same vision, rendered in
the same method--if such a thing as method did exist then in my
conscious relation to this new adventure of writing for print. I doubt it
very much. One does one's work first and theorises about it afterwards.
It is a very amusing and egotistical occupation of no use whatever to
any one and just as likely as not to lead to false conclusions.
Anybody can see that between the last paragraph of "An Outcast" and
the first of "The Lagoon" there has been no change of pen, figuratively
speaking. It happened also to be literally true. It was the same pen: a
common steel pen. Having been charged with a certain lack of
emotional faculty I am glad to be able to say that on one occasion at
least I did give way to a sentimental impulse. I thought the pen had
been a good pen and that it had done enough for me, and so, with the
idea of keeping it for a sort of memento on which I could look later
with tender eyes, I put it into my waistcoat pocket. Afterwards it used
to turn up in all sorts of places--at the bottom of small drawers, among
my studs in cardboard boxes--till at last it found permanent rest in a
large wooden bowl containing some loose keys, bits of sealing wax,
bits of string, small broken chains, a few buttons, and similar minute
wreckage that washes out of a man's life into such receptacles. I would
catch sight of it from time to time with a distinct feeling of satisfaction

till, one day, I perceived with horror that there were two old pens in
there. How the other pen found its way into the bowl instead of the
fireplace or wastepaper basket I can't imagine, but there the two were,
lying side by side, both encrusted with ink and completely
undistinguishable from each other. It was very distressing, but being
determined not to share my sentiment between two pens or run the risk
of sentimentalising over a mere stranger, I threw them both out of the
window into a flower bed-- which strikes me now as a poetical grave
for the remnants of one's past.
But the tale remained. It was first fixed in print in the "Cornhill
Magazine", being my first appearance in a serial of any kind; and I
have lived long enough to see it guyed most agreeably by Mr. Max
Beerbohm in a volume of parodies entitled "A Christmas Garland,"
where I found myself in very good company. I was immensely gratified.
I began to believe in my public existence. I have much to thank "The
Lagoon" for.
My next effort in short-story writing was a departure--I mean a
departure from the Malay Archipelago. Without premeditation, without
sorrow, without rejoicing, and almost without noticing it, I stepped into
the very different atmosphere of "An Outpost of Progress." I found
there a different moral attitude. I seemed